Opinion polls on voting intentions are multiplying in the media and are starting to influence the course of the electoral campaign for the legislative elections.
Monitoring Opinion Polls for Legislative Elections
For the legislative elections on June 30 and July 7, attention inevitably focuses on voting intention polls. These polls are based on the law of large numbers, which states that an average observed in a sample of the population tends to approach the true value in the entire population as the sample size increases.
If the sample is representative and large enough (usually between 1000 and 2000 people in politics), and if the questions asked are not biased, then a poll has a good chance of reflecting the state of opinion at a given moment. In France, the publication of political polls is regulated by the law of July 1977, with the Commission on Opinion Polls ensuring the control of the methodology used and the institutes being required to publish their margin of error.
This margin of error depends on the sample size, being lower with a larger sample, but also on the measured score. The closer this score is to 50%, the larger the margin of error.
During this campaign for the legislative elections, it is emphasized that seat projections are not polls per se and introduce many biases in interpretation. To represent the National Assembly accurately, 577 polls would have to be conducted, one per constituency, with a local sample each time. As this is not feasible, projections are based on a national poll, which does not take into account local issues and the personality of the candidates.
Technology and the Evolution of Opinion Polls
Thanks to the use of the internet, it is possible to obtain representative samples and responses to questionnaires more quickly than with other methods such as telephone or face-to-face interviews. This allows for a more efficient and instantaneous statistical snapshot of public opinion. However, despite technological advancements, polls are not more predictive today than they were 30 years ago, due to the increasing volatility of political opinions. Therefore, it is essential to exercise caution in their interpretation, especially when the date of the election is still far off.
Source: francetvinfo.fr
