The accuracy and necessity of political polling in society with RANZ

With all that's happening in the world today, from a political perspective, the upcoming elections taking place around the globe, the recent year we've witnessed in pre-election polling and current perceptions of polls, we were lucky enough to sit in and record a panel discussion on this very topic. It took place after the Research Association of New Zealand's AGM.

You'll hear from industry experts on why polling matters in society. There's also a Q&A section that took place at the end of the episode to just before we do crossover.

**Please note** We wanted to set an expectation from an audio quality point of view. Unfortunately, it's not quite as clear in some parts as we would have hoped since this was recorded in an external facility. But nevertheless, there is some great food for thought in there, and we highly encourage you to hear the episode out, and I'm sure you will enjoy it, too. 

This discussion's genesis came about as a result of a recent opinion piece published in the NZ Herald, where Mike Hosking wrote “…the polls as they currently stand are not particularly accurate.”

But as we know, political polls are an essential part of maintaining open democratic systems like ours. They tell us the mood of the electorate at a particular point in time and allow people to vote in that context.

Panelists are as below.

Representing the pollsters: Founder of Curia Research. Pollster to Prime Ministers and Opposition Leaders… David Farrar

Representing Academia: Deputy Director, Healthier Lives National Science Challenge. Associate Professor (Honorary), Department of Statistics | Waipapa Taumata Rau / The University of Auckland. Managing Director iNZight Analytics. And co-author of “Understanding Public Opinion Polling in New Zealand (May 2023)… Andrew Sporle 

Representing the Fourth Estate: With NZME, working on the BusinessDesk team's election coverage, focusing on political parties’ policies and plans to address issues facing New Zealand… Dileepa Fonseka

And representing the Research Association: Founder Baseline Consultancy. RANZ Life Member and RANZ Political Polling Spokesperson. Masters degree in Geography, graduating, in fact, at the same time as me with the same degree but with much better marks… Murray Campbell

The episode covers:

• A response to the claim that the polls as they currently stand are not particularly accurate.
• Looking at various failures and sources of errors in polling from around the world.
• The influence certain events can have on polling and electoral results.
• The changing demographic makeup of the electoral roll.
• Impact of advanced voting on polling.
• The role of political polling in society.

We hope you enjoy the episode.