This latest poll was taken after the recent debates and suggests if the percentages held up on election day that the PQ would win a minority government. The PQ are heavily in the lead among francophones and in the seats outside of the Quebec city and Montreal island areas. The CAQ is leading in the Québec city area. The Liberals have a huge lead among non francophones.67 % to 9% for the PQ and 15% for the CAQ and among older voters. They lag far behind among younger voters. The poll is based on a telephone survey of 1929 people selected from an on line population of 185,000 voters sampled in such a way as to mirror the electorate . However, as I have pointed out before these sorts of polls are less reliable because of the lack of randomness than properly conducted sample surveys because they contain a measure of self-selection and they can underrepresent certain classes of voters who are less likely to frequent the internet thereby biasing the sample.For example, older voters may be less internet savy and less likely to be part of the population from the internet that is sampled.(For a good discussion of problems with these sorts of polls see http://www.wnd.com/2000/10/6728/; and also NY Times Jan 15 , 2012 Nate Silver’s blog http://www.fivethirteight.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/01/15 before=citing-a-poll-read-the -fine-print. ) The danger is that the public and many journalists are unaware of these sorts of problems and can use erroneous polls to shift public opinion in one direction or another.
We shall see how other polls compare.
Like this:
Like Loading...
Related
About haroldchorneyeconomist
I am Professor of political economy at Concordia university in Montréal, Québec, Canada. I received my B.A.Hons (econ.&poli sci) from the University of Manitoba. I also completed my M.A. degree in economics there. Went on to spend two years at the London School of Economics as a Ph.D. student in economics and then completed my Ph.D. in political economy at the University of Toronto. Was named a John W.Dafoe fellow, a CMHC fellow and a Canada Council fellow. I also was named a Woodrow Wilson fellow in 1968 after completing my first class honours undergraduate degree. Worked as an economist in the area of education, labour economics and as the senior economist with the Manitoba Housing and Renewal Corporation for the Government of Manitoba from 1972 to 1978. I also have worked as an economic consultant for MDT socio-economic consultants and have been consulted on urban planning, health policy, linguistic duality and public sector finance questions by the governments of Manitoba, Saskatchewan,the cities of Regina and Saskatoon, Ontario and the Federal government of Canada. I have also been consulted by senior leaders of the British Labour party, MPs from the Progressive Conservative party, the Liberal party and the New Democrats on economic policy questions. Members of the Government of France under the Presidency of Francois Mitterand discussed my work on public sector deficits. I have also run for elected office at the municipal level. I first began to write about quantitative easing as a useful policy option during the early 1980s.
haroldchorneyeconomist 