SASKATOON – With less than a week to go before Saskatchewan votes, all eyes are on the numbers. The polls have been consistent from the start but Joseph Garcea, a political studies professor at the University of Saskatchewan (U of S), says they have a mixed track record.
“Polls can go wrong in a thousand different ways. Literally,” he explained. With limited access to phones and voters willing to participate, he points out that there is great room for error.
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“The very first poll conducted decades ago got it absolutely wrong. More recently, there’s been problems predicting the American election and even the Scottish referendum,” he said.
In the 2015 federal election campaign, data shows the Conservative Party was leading only two weeks before the big day. Garcea accounts the change for a switch in public opinion.
“It becomes very interesting if there’s a radical difference from what the polls are saying going into the election. And that’s when political scientists start examining,” he added.
In a March 16 poll by Insightrix, Saskatchewan Party support was at 61 per cent. The NDP was at 29 per cent.
For one voter, these numbers may sway their decision spurring what Garcea calls a “bandwagon effect” but for others, it may mean very little.
Greg Poelzer, another political studies professor at U of S, says polls run into problems because people can change their minds by the time the results are out. He also adds that provincial and municipal polls do not indicate what is happening riding by riding.
James Brown said he took a poll Tuesday night but pays little attention to who is in the lead.
“I don’t believe much in polls. I really don’t. They change from week to week. And when the election comes, they change,” said Brown.
While Garcea says he doesn’t expect any drastic surprises on April 4, he says polls have ranged from being highly accurate to dead wrong in the past.
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