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Category: EU Referendum

How old men being available on Friday nights to do online polls might be skewing results

How old men being available on Friday nights to do online polls might be skewing results

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Very early responders to poll invites might not be representative After YouGov’s methodology changes last week ICM have announced their own measures as we approach the big day. This is the firm’s Martin Boon he explains it on the pollster’s website: “..Interviews tend to build up quickly on each Friday night, probably because certain types of people are more readily available and willing to participate. Indeed, there is a remarkable consistency across our online polls, with big Leave leads being…

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Two of the last four phone polls have REMAIN leading amongst 65+ voters

Two of the last four phone polls have REMAIN leading amongst 65+ voters

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And not one of the last 6 polls has OUT ahead amongst CON voters The big BREXIT polling news overnight is splashed on the front page of the Telegraph – that in its latest ORB referendum phone poll the over 65s are splitting for REMAIN. After taking out those who did not give a voting preference the 65+ group split was 54%-46%. Given that the overall poll sample size of 800 that ORB has been using for its BREXIT phone…

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Re-formatting the EURef polling table so it strips out the don’t knows

Re-formatting the EURef polling table so it strips out the don’t knows

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This should make comparison easier The election is a month today and postal votes to overseas addresses are starting to be mailed out. To coincide I’m switching my regular polling table to election mode stripping out the don’t knows and just give the figures of those who had a voting intention. Where a pollster has not provided this information I have set my spreadsheet so it calculates this itself. Showing net numbers is, after all, how general election polls a…

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The uncertainty principle. A step by step guide to handling confusing polling in your betting

The uncertainty principle. A step by step guide to handling confusing polling in your betting

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The Alastair Meeks Decision Tree You can access the descison tree here The EU referendum polling is all over the shop, with a stark divide between the phone polls, which show a clear Remain lead, and the online polls, which show it neck and neck with Leave perhaps fractionally ahead.  How on earth are we supposed to cater for this in our betting? Here’s how.  We only need to assess two things: what the current state of public opinion is…

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Perhaps Leave really are going to win this referendum

Perhaps Leave really are going to win this referendum

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What if the phone polls are wrong? Earlier on this year I spoke to someone who works in the polling industry, they ruefully observed that the 2015 general election opinion polls accurately predicted the Tory victory, so long as you ignored the headline voting intention figures and focussed on the supplementaries, and I’m starting to wonder if we might be seeing a similar situation with this EU referendum, where whatever the headline voting intention figure is, the supplementaries are generally…

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CON voters, it appears, are now more inclined to Dave’s EURef position than Boris’s

CON voters, it appears, are now more inclined to Dave’s EURef position than Boris’s

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My article for tomorrow's Observer on the #EURef polling https://t.co/yfXfgCuYiW — Mike Smithson (@MSmithsonPB) May 21, 2016 New Opinium online poll has IN lead getting widerIN: 44% (+2)OUT: 40% (-1) — Mike Smithson (@MSmithsonPB) May 21, 2016 CON voters split #EURef pollsICM phone 49-39 INICM online 45-44 INYouGov 44-44Ipsos MORI 60-34 INComRes 48-46 INOpinium 48-41 IN — Mike Smithson (@MSmithsonPB) May 21, 2016 If it stays this way it could be decisive The general view until this last week has…

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For millions the referendum will be over next weekend. Postal voting starts next Saturday

For millions the referendum will be over next weekend. Postal voting starts next Saturday

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The postal ballots go out next week Anything upto a quarter of the votes cast in the referendum will be by post and the time-table stipulated by the Electoral Commission states that ballot packs to postal voters should start to go out on Monday. Initially those who currently live overseas will be mailed but the plan is that UK-based postal voters will start getting their ballots by the weekend. Given that we know from past elections that most postal voters…

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The extraordinary public battle between two of the men behind the creation and success of YouGov

The extraordinary public battle between two of the men behind the creation and success of YouGov

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Once upon a time @PeterKellner1 & @StephanShaxper were the leading lights in YouGov. This morning a Twitter scrap… pic.twitter.com/NBUaGDVjC5 — Mike Smithson (@MSmithsonPB) May 20, 2016 What the #EURef would look like if we just had phone polls pic.twitter.com/H2FmsCtkUL — Mike Smithson (@MSmithsonPB) May 20, 2016 What EURef would look like if it was just online polls pic.twitter.com/pOx6ALKDLI — Mike Smithson (@MSmithsonPB) May 20, 2016 Maybe all in the polling industry should have same humility as ICM's @martinboon in the…

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