Why aren’t all pollsters asking referendum questions?

Why aren’t all pollsters asking referendum questions?

Latest AV referendum polls Date YES % NO % Question wording
YouGov/Sun 07/02/11 38 (+6) 39 (-2) Bespoke wording – referring to the fact that this is a proposal from the Conservative-Lib Dem coalition
Angus Reid/ 25/01/11 37 21 Actual wording on the ballot
ComRes/Indy on Sunday 14/01/11 36 30 Actual wording on the ballot
ICM/Guardian 19/12/10 44 38 Actual wording on the ballot

Meanwhile YouGov moves more into line on the referendum

In the past fortnight we’ve had new Westminster voting intention polls from ICM, Populus and Ipsos-MORI – yet extraordinarily none of them asked about the referendum that’s likely to take place on May 5th.

Given the possible ramifications for the result for all three main parties, their leaders, and the coalition generally then this is quite surprising.

YouGov have been asking an AV question at least fortnightly for several months while Angus Reid tell me that they hope to be putting the referendum point at least once and possibly twice a month.

YouGov, which has been showing quite a different outcome from the other firms, has now got a poll out showing YES only one point behind NO.

It had been felt that the firm’s question wording referring to the CON-LD coalition might have been having an impact. Well that might be the case but there were no changes in the format for their latest survey.

These are just tasters and things could change dramatically during the campaign. NO is trying to put the emphasis on Nick Clegg while YES will try to distance its campaign as much as possible away from current elected politicians.

In the PB referendum prediction for the William Hill prize my entry was 50.04% – this can go either way.

Mike Smithson

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