Surveys banned in week before elections

Victor

Read this - now one wonders are the penalties for 'political' (as opposed to 'media') offenses as substantial.

Lets just print 'em on boards.ie

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The Government today passed an amendment to the Electoral Bill banning the publication of opinion polls in the week before an election.

A last-minute amendment submitted to the Dáil provides for fines of up to £100,000 (euro 127,000) and/or two years in prison if anyone breaks the ban.

Full story:

http://www.ireland.com/newspaper/breaking/2001/0705/breaking59.htm

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Too many freaks, not enough circuses.

bugler

Idiocy.I don't think it merits further comment to be honest.Talk about a knee jerk reaction. Basically, we're all a bunch of prats who are all too easily swayed by what others think, we are spineless idiots, incapable of making our decisions if given any information at all.....

Hobbes

Can someone explain the logical reason behind this? Only thing I can see is it can be used to rig the election, but that is hogwash?

GreenHell

Reaction to the last by-election.

This has no really effect on your regular voter I think but all the same it makes good media, also poles are banned out right in some countries I think around an election.

Don't think this will aid FF much but it should at least allow "smaller" canidates a better chance at getting elected instead of being ruled out in opinnion poles.

R. Daneel Olivaw

Also probably due to the Nice debacle. Maybe then without opinion polls we can be "re-educated" properly as Mary harney said on the radio after the Nice vote.

DadaKopf

I was actually going to say that the new amendment is a good idea but then I thought about who exactly has access to polls and the right for people to strategically vote.

On one hand, you have a question about the possibility of one newspaper's poll to sway voters through statistical manipulation - I'm being over anxious here - since the election of certain politicians would help big businesses and tycoons like Tony O'Reilly. In one way, it dissuades voter manipulation.

But what about the public access to statistics; all the parties would have their own surveys carried out daily but the public wouldn't know the outcome of the election. Everyone has a right to strategically vote and if this is a decisive move by the present coalition to prevent that, I'm apalled.

Personally, I don't think it'll stand up to legal scrutiny. McAleese will probably refer it to the Supreme Court for evaluation. There are no excuses for it not to be referred, this is an action that prevents the public from accessing vital information regarding their only remaining, genuine realm of political participation. Unless we all go out and try to become politicians.

If there are to be any controls over ICM polls and so on, it should be an independent election watchdog which can fine research companies if there is any statistical manipulation discovered. But then, I'm dreaming.

In the end of the day, these polls should be published, but the voters should be equally wary of them.

C B

I'm suprised that none of you nerds ( ) have pointed out the fact that the Belfast Telegraph (Owned by the Indo) or the Irish News would be entirely at liberty to publish any polls in their papers or on the web as they are published outside this juristiction.

This scenario has become the norm in France, where polls are banned in the final two days of elections, and CNN can conduct and broadcast polls both on TV and the Web.

Hobbes this is (partly) a reaction to a recent by-election in South Tipp. where TG4/MRBI conducted a poll showing the Fine Gael candidate winning and the FF canditate coming third. The poll, as usual, turned out to be quite acurate.

FF claim that the poll created a mood of fatalism and was bad for the democratic process. It should also be noted that FG support the bill for precisely the opposite reason i.e. if FG voters think their man is a shoe in they won't turn out and he won't get elected (see Nice Treaty for an example of this )

[This message has been edited by C B (edited 06-07-2001).]

SweetBirdOfTruth

i don't see this as a knee-jerk reaction to nice, or even to south tipp. wrt nice, too few ppl voted, the yes campaign thought it was a done-deal, and only the no campaigners made cogent arguments. if anything is a response to nice it's the 15-squid increase in rté's licence, less than they had requested. re south tipp, my own view is that the tg4 ultimately benefited ff, by getting their own ppl off their arses and out voting. though ff came 3rd in south tipp they can at least argue to have increased their share of the vote.

polls are banned in many countries in the final run up to the election. even the uk has toyed with teh notion of banning them, but i guess the pollsters have more power over their, or certianly must contribute more in campaign donations than they evidently do over here.

whether anyone benefits / anyone loses by this piece of legislation is debatable. the average voter is intelligent enough to be able to tell that the polls themselves are not bias-free.

the simple question is, when it comes to you making up your mind how you are going to vote, do you need a poll to tell you how all the other sheep are voting or are you able to exercise proper judgement yourself?

Xterminator

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by Victor:
The Government today passed an amendment to the Electoral Bill banning the publication of opinion polls in the week before an election.
</font>

I would like to point out that the legisation amendment was tabled by Fine Gael, a party not currently in power.
It was accepted by the government,
As for a knee jerk response, well if you check it out, it was considered over 2 years ago by government, but was dropped because there was no cross party support at the time, and could have been interpreted wrongly.

Therefore the Nice or South Tipp argument is crap.

It is felt in other countries that it aids democracy, as they felt the opinion polls may become formative of opinion, (with research to back up that argument)and help increase turn out, as the voters of 1 side which has massive support, can be quite lax about turning out to vote.



[This message has been edited by Xterminator (edited 06-07-2001).]

SweetBirdOfTruth

personally, i hold the vote-swapping schemes advocated by the likes of billy bragg in the uk as evidence that opinion polls do not just report opinion but form it too

C B

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by SweetBirdOfTruth:
personally, i hold the vote-swapping schemes advocated by the likes of billy bragg in the uk as evidence that opinion polls do not just report opinion but form it too</font>

We do not have a first past the post system here and even still people have a right to vote tactically if they choose to do so.

SweetBirdOfTruth

what's your job? stating the bleeding obvious?

i *know* we don't have 1st past the post, never suggested we didn't. and i agree that folk are entitled to make up their own mind. my point is that, in those marginal seats in the uk where vote swapping was prominent, what role did polls play in deciding which candidate gained the vote and which candidate lost the vote in order to out vote the tory?

_CreeD_

All it does is try and minimise the effect of the wonderful sheep mentality in 95% or so of the population.

How can not knowing what the other guy is likely to vote for in any way violate your rights? Everyone who has a vote has a responsibility to make up their own minds based on the issues, choices and the facts to hand.

C B

I understand the point your tryig to make but what exactly is wrong with tactical voting, and what is wrong with people using opinion polls to better utilise the option?

Gladiator

im not to sure how right this is, it seem very un democratic to do this

SweetBirdOfTruth

cb - for someone who holds a degree in stating the bleeding obvious you're not able to rd and interpret correctly v well, are you? (maybe that's why you need opinion polls, to tell you what all the other sheep are doing?) lk, there's nothing wrong with tactical voting, we all of us do it, and it's easier to do in pr than it is in 1st-past-the-post.

the comment is though (third time lucky - i met yet get through to that brain of yours) in the recent election in the uk, where tactical voting was used in seats that were felt to be marginally tory, opinion polls were used (in some instances - history in others) to identify the nxt most likely non-tory candidate. so if the election is going to be based on opinion polls, why bother having an election? why not just get nielsen or whover to phone up a representative sample of, say, 2,357 voters across the land and ask them how they're going to vote and allot the relevant seats accordingly? in the end, less hassle than a real election and you don't have to worry about kicking the kids out of school for the day, or folk forgetting to vote cause they were locked down the boozer.

C B

Loisten you seem reasonably intelligent and you make some good points but stop flaming me. You're new here and you won't do your reputation any good by abusing people who don't share your opinions.

Opinion polls are actually quite acurate. People do vote tactically and would be better at it with reliable information.

ConUladh

I don't think this is necessarily a bad idea, people are put off voting when they think their choice is going to win/lose by a landslide. However, I don't think it's right, freedom of speech etc. etc.

i.e. I believe more strongly in freedom of speech than I do in getting people out to vote

Here is an article in Wed's times (as opposed to Thurs breaking news above) :

http://www.ireland.com/newspaper/front/2001/0704/fro3.htm

They make a decent case for it indeed being a reaction to the by-election. Though of course the Irish Times are obviously going to be biased in this


[This message has been edited by ConUladh (edited 06-07-2001).]

Magwitch

I agree with it. People like Tony O'Rielly have far to much editorial influence over their newspapers, hence he has kept the Tribune on a life support machine even though it is a loss maker year after year.

The people in front of the Tribunals have much inflence in media circles and this allows a power monied elite to excert inflence over the public in elections and bi-election (the south tip election newspaper polls were off but 5 - 7% points which is fishy).

SweetBirdOfTruth

a government spokesman this afternoon confirmed the u-turn on the proposed
banning of opinion polls in the seven days prior to an election following
senator joe bore's pointing out last night that under the proposed
legislation it would be ok to publish polls on the day of the election
itself. said the spokesman "this climb down should not be seen as an
embarrassment for the party of power. we did not table this legislation just
because we were ****ed off at losing six by-elections in a row. we actually
tabled it because it was fine girls' idea and we wanted to see what baldy
noonan would look like with egg on his face. now we know so bertie, feeling
a bit full of himself after trousering £30k in the four goldmines yesterday,
has decided to show strong leadership (we think that this is a result of
spending so much time around gerry adams in the last few days - mata harney
is quaking in her black leather boots) and listen to the voices of the
people, who we have extensively polled in the last seven days and who tell
us that they want to say yes to polls. we're hoping that we might be able to
get them to say yes to a couple of other things later in the year, like the
nice referendum and voting us back into power. anybody who says that we are
simply doing what sir aj o'reilly tells us to do is a liar liar pants on
fire."

full report:
http://www.ireland.com/newspaper/breaking/2001/0711/breaking14.htm

Gladiator

one has to wonder was it smart of the major political to **** of the the main newpaper in the way

Victor

http://www.ireland.com/newspaper/breaking/2001/0711/breaking14.htm

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Too many freaks, not enough circuses.

TwoShedsJackson

Now the Government has another humiliating climb-down to go through. This latest fiasco has set the seal, for me, on the fact that this country currently has no Government. Bertie Ahern is one of the most indecisive fence sitters ever - the position of Taoiseach is basically vacant right now.

The sad thing is Fianna Fail will still get their 45% of the vote at the next general election because people's families have always voted FF, or some back-scratching deal or favour ten years ago or whatever.

GreenHell

Hmm I don't think thats particularily fair/right (fair tsk its politics fair doesn't exist) but FF is a minority goverment and so they most stay on the better side of public opinion, I personnally find this disappointing but then again this isn't a bill which FF proposed, FG proposed to ban opinion poles in the week before and election.

FF are still in my opinion the best party to to win the next general election, the opposition, talk to any FF person they'll say what opposition. FG don't have the personnal or the inisative for public administration this is something they hav proven over and over and over ..... one example of this is the north when FG were last in power and what happened after the last general election the peace process was working again.

I'd like to see some proper party to appear as a real alternative to FF in Irish politics but honesty I don't see it happening before the next general election.