On That Iranian Poll
by: Chris Bowers
Mon Jun 15, 2009 at 12:30
http://www.openleft.com/diary/13774/on-that-iranian-poll
Today's Washington Post op-ed by Ken Ballen and Patrick Doherty
concerning a public opinion survey they conducted in Iran on that
nation's presidential election is both worth a read, and highly
disturbing for what it omits. Here is the first paragraph:
"The election results in Iran may reflect the will of the Iranian
people. Many experts are claiming that the margin of victory of
incumbent President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was the result of fraud or
manipulation, but our nationwide public opinion survey of Iranians
three weeks before the vote showed Ahmadinejad leading by a more than
2 to 1 margin -- greater than his actual apparent margin of victory
in Friday's election."
Anyone regularly involved in poll analysis would notice two red flags
in this paragraph:
1. The actual results of the poll were 34%-14%, with 27%
undecided and 22% falling into some strange category of not
supporting anyone nor being undecided. To instead report the results
as "more than a 2 to 1 margin" is to use a rhetorical trick that
creates more similarity between the final result and the poll than
the numbers actually suggest.
2. The poll was conducted from May 11-20, which is
actually a range of 24-33 days before the election, not "three
weeks." To call it three weeks instead of providing the actual dates
make it sound as though the poll was taken closer to the election
than it actually was.
Because of these two rhetorical slight of hands that were employed
instead of simply listing the poll results and actual dates the poll
was completed, my sense of the integrity of this poll drops
immediately. It wouldn't even have taken any longer to just list the
numbers, but for some reason the pollsters immediately employed
rhetorical moves instead.
Undecideds break heavily for lesser known challengers within the
context of American elections. It is difficult to imagine why that
would be any different in other countries, given that the same
phenomenon of the electorate making up its collective mind about an
incumbent before the election season would still be in effect.
Further, check out the following two paragraphs from the poll that
they failed to mention entirely in their op-ed (hat-tip Juan Cole):
"A close examination of our survey results reveals that the race may
actually be closer than a first look at the numbers would indicate.
More than 60 percent of those who state they don't know who they will
vote for in the Presidential elections reflect individuals who favor
political reform and change in the current system.'(...)
"The current mood indicates that none of the candidates will likely
pass the 50 percent threshold needed to automatically win; meaning
that a second round runoff between the two highest finishers, as
things stand, Mr. Ahmadinejad and Mr. Moussavi, is likely."
So, due to the large number of undecideds and the mood of the
undecideds, in writing about their own poll, Ballen and Doherty
actually predicted a second-round run-off with no one reaching 50%+1.
However, when official results come out showing the incumbent winning
with 63%, they publish an op-ed in the Washington Post suggesting
that the election was clean, based on their own polling?
I don't know anything about these pollsters. However, it is pretty
bizarre to argue, at different times, that a single poll both shows
the incumbent likely to not reach 50%, and also that a 63% result for
the incumbent was probably legitimate. I really can't wrap my head
around that one. Even though I absolutely hate making implications
like this, such a strange turnabout in analysis is enough to make one
wonder if there is another agenda at play.
Anyway, this isn't going to be settled by statistical analysis. Right
now, the real numbers to be asking about are how many people are
protesting, and how long they will continue to do so. On that front,
the number seems to be rising from thousands, to hundreds of
thousands, to millions.
Chris Bowers :: On That Iranian Poll
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