by frog
The latest opinion polls are in, and the Greens almost have enough support to govern alone. Certainly, if we formed a coalition with Act, we’d easily have the numbers to govern. Normally, we’d have formed a coalition with Labour, but that would give our government almost 85% of MPs, which feels positively Mugabe-esque. So, maybe Act will be willing to help us out 
Here are the party standings:
Green: 46%
Labour: 38%
National: 10%
Act: 4%
Progressive: 2%
So, what is the source of this poll? Well, I thought you’d never ask. Critic – Otago University’s student magazine – sent out a political poll to the several hundred students on its volunteer list. Critic Editor Holly Walker told frogblog that 56 students replied, and the above percentages were based on their responses. However, she added that a politics lecturer she’d spoken to concurred that the results squared with his impressions of his students’ political allegiances Well, that’s enough for me. I did think about adding these figures to frogblog’s polling averager, but am awaiting more information about Critic’s methodology.
In any case, 56 students out the twenty thousand or so who study at Otago is actually a larger proportion of the target population than you get in national opinion polls (0.28% vs 0.05%). In national polls, 1,000 people are sampled to gauge the opinion of the over two million Kiwis eligible to vote. So, I’ll take Critic over Colmar Brunton any day of the week and twice this Saturday.
In the meantime, pollsters may wish to reflect on the fact that they’re probably not talking to nearly enough young people to get an accurate feel for how they’ll be voting . After all, how many tertiary students don’t have landlines and rely exclusively on cellphones, which don’t get called by pollsters?
Published in Campaign by frog on Tue, September 13th, 2005
Tags: environment
on the trolls and those who are unable to keep on topic
Curses to Labour’s student bribes. You would have had a clear majority.
And then you could safely dump the Mugabe government combo. 38% of labour nibbling at your footpads would still make things tough.
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Frog, I know this isn’t the point, but population size has nothing to do with the margin of error. Mathematically, margin of error of any population of a sample size of 56 is 1/sqrt(56) = 14% or so. For 1000 people it is about 3%. Doesn’t matter if we have 5 or 500 million people.
Of course, this assumes that the polling methodology is getting a true representative sample. As you’ve discussed before (re dodgy SST polls et al) it is rarely the case.
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Stymied: I was, of course, joking, and am well aware that 56 is not a decent sample size
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of course 14% margin of error still looks good as that would mean the lowest the greens could be would be 32%
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thats disgusting fwwog, dont even jokes about it,
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I’m glad to hear that the ACT-Green Coalition is going ahead, what’s the first policy – a 25% Flat Tax on all Carbon Emissions? (15% on the first 38,000 tonnes)
OF course, if 56 responded out of 20,000 Otago Uni students, what does that say about turnout of students on the day?
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Actually, you’ll notice that we didn’t ask all 18,000 to respond. We nearly did – and then realised that we would have to collate all their responses using a few columns in Excel! We’re not exactly set up to run a proper poll, so we had a sample of a couple of hundred. 56 replied in time to be included, and several more did later on, so students are not as apathetic as you might think.
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stymied, I don’t get it . (sorry if im truning this into stats 101)
are you saying that if you have a population of 57 and of them you take a sample of 56, that the marging of error will still be 14% ?
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Clearly pollsters have been outed as frauds! Pollsters don’t call cellphones, don’t phone residents in rest homes, don’t phone patients in hospitals, don’t call people with unlisted numbers, don’t call workplaces, don’t call pubs, don’t call……just who do they call? I’ve voted in 10 elections and never been phoned once by a pollster, nor have I ever met someone who has ever been called.
Do pollsters makes calls in Samoan, Tongan, Niuean, Chinese, Korean, Japanese, and any other number of languages. Oops, do they make calls in Maori?
I think not. Geez, this is really worrying. Lots of city councils claim they have a mandate to do this or that based on telephone surveys! Now we know why Wellington is full of new motorway sites, wrecked heritage buildings, destroyed views, stuffed up waterfront and so much more. It’s because their pollsters call people who only exist in their little black books!
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Great point DR.
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wizban: Small populations follow a different set of rules. Over a large population (ie, most polls) the distribution of the data isn’t dependant on the population size.
It was interesting see the news clip of Helen at Otago University today.. seems she didn’t get quite the welcome reception the above figures would indicate (well.. assuming that green supporters wouldn’t be heckling her).
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stymied;
watch out for the news clip of Helen at Vic Uni tomorrow – the same people who brought you registry sit-ins & occupations some 2 years ago will be organising to motivate hecklers to ask the sticky questions -
like why has the uni council been able to raise fees by 3% in 2003, a further 4.5% in 2004, and who knows how much they’ll be putting their mitts up for this year.
ain’t much use reducing interest on loans if fees rise by same/better amount per annum (not everyone is studying full-time, by a long chalk, and it hits part-timers harder, also those who go on to post-graduate study)
students are just basically grumpy everywhere in the country!
katie
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You know the scary part – there are a number in the ACT party who could probably work with the Greens quite easily – thats assuming that Franks and Newman are dropped like a hot potato.
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look kaiwai yous dont start giving away the plan till after the election, i think Rodney will be amenable to a total restructure, and i for one will be insisting that we take on an Environmental policy,
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PQ – fair go – I will insist that greens take on a defense policy
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