Mr. Larren Peart of Blue Dot
Mr. Jackson, when you and I spoke yesterday (last Sunday), I told you to send me an email and we would respond officially. I also told you that the poll wasn’t finished and that there was no doubt an explanation to your question, but you have gone ahead and published analysis comparing apples to grapes.
(IC Insider.com had put the following questions to Mr. Larren Peart orally and by Whatsapp, “only approximately 50% persons voted in the 2016 general elections but your polling data says 75% did. How does this affect the poll finding to the questions asked in the polls? What could have caused such a huge variance? In addition, the poll findings suggest that 75 percent of registered voters would vote in the upcoming elections but that is far from what happened in recent elections.)
Mr. Peart continues, I also maintain that you have no grounds to discredit the conduct of our poll if the findings are consistent with other polls conducted by more established practitioners, which you have alluded to in said article. So why then single out Bluedot?
Here is our response. I trust that after reading it you will retract or reword your article. The respondent sample comprised only of persons who indicated that they intend to vote in the next general election or that they are undecided about voting. The results do not reflect the views of persons who reported that they do not intend to vote. The poll therefore only reports the views of persons who are likely or considering showing up at the polls when the next general election is held.
Pollster Bill Johnson
The poll results are not intended to be basis for calculating voter turnout as the sample does not include non-voters. It would, therefore, be incorrect to compare these findings to voter-turnout statistics as the underlying bases cannot be equated. The base for voter turnout statistics is the entire enumerated population. The base for the poll reflects only the enumerated population with the intention to vote.
On the point of focusing only on marginal seats – The sample was stratified, using appropriate quotas, to mirror the constituency distribution of the electorate, such that if a constituency accounts for 3% of the electorate, it also accounted for 3% of the final sample. As such, there is no skew towards any constituency, marginal or otherwise.
And a final point, I also read the articles hyperlinked to Bill Johnson’s and Don Anderson’s names in the article, you also harshly criticize the credibility of those polls and obviously have a bias against the conduct of polls. It is apparent to me, from reading all three articles, that anything short of a complete census of the electorate would leave you convinced.
In other words, to simplify it the first question asks if they intended to vote as a qualifying question or a screener then of those who said yes they intend to vote, we asked if they voted. Therefore, your analysis is flawed sir. It’s two separate bases.
You should have waited for us to respond. Now you have sullied our brand. Please address this soonest. Thanks.
Editor’s comments: Persons are entitled to their opinions, but that does not change the facts. The most critical issue is that if only 25 percent of persons voted for the JLP and PNP at the last election, there should not be a massive difference between persons saying they voted for the JLP compared to the PNP. There is a vast difference between both with the polls saying that the JLP supporters had 15 percentage points more votes or 38 percent more than voted at the last elections and the PNP just six percentage points or a 24 percent difference. Maybe Mr. Peart and staff should read other articles that IC Insider wrote on polls including that of the Trinidad last general elections in 2015 and some of his views may change.
