What if we had no polls?

The exit poll will give a very accurate assessment of the percentage votes for each party across the country, but I'm not sure how well it can measure tactical voting and other local factors to give an estimate of the seats for each party.

But if there had been no pre-election polls since WW2 for instance then we might be in a very different place. I'm pretty sure the Liberals/Lib Dems would have got in many years ago but people always said there was 'no point' in voting for them (because that's what the polls were telling them).

As long as we have FPTP people will vote tactically and polls are part of the information we can get. Voting tactically is not undemocratic, it gives you a chance to get a government thats not your ideal but as close a possible, and that includes deciding to keep someone out.

In an ideal world everyone would be busy reading policy proposals and following party statements closely, but I don't think many do: polls can be a wake up call.

Maybe I'm wrong, the official exit poll isn't until 10pm tonight!

This seems to be the exit poll. I always find it interesting to see how that compares with the actual result.

Polls are usually half right and half wrong but they keep people employed I suppose . The way they are going on it sounds as though the Conservatives will all but disappear on Thursday. Interesting to see if they are right. I have been asked several times pre various elections and I would sometimes say one thing, sometimes another depending on how I felt at the time . I think they are rubbish. I used to work for them at weekends, just as a side issue. .

I know who I want to vote for and no poll would change that as I am not influenced by what other people want, only what I would want from a political party. Saying this, whichever party wins the election, all their promises they made pre-election will go out of the window when faced with the reality of actually having to run the country.

Plus people lie about their voting intentions.

Labour will win, not because that’s what the polls say, but because people are fed up with the Tories after 15 years.

Yes, there seems little point to them. Do they accost people in the street to ask their opinions on things? Hardly an efficient way of doing things.
I have it on good authority that Labour will win the election but not with a massive majority. My source has been accurate before.

Polls get it wrong quite often so I don’t take much notice of them.

Statistics - they simply show trends really that is all and the pollsters try to form models that estimate the number of seats.

I don’t think that they influence people except perhaps where people vote tactically. They are simply snapshots of a particular day.

They have clearly had no influence on the way people are saying that they are going to vote this election as apart from Farage entering the scene the polls have hardly moved one iota.

So I think trying to restrict information is always a bad thing.

Well the Conservatives have just wheeled out Boris Johnson

And, when that happens a figurehead emerges to harness that feeling. Those people always exist but nothing happens to them until people as a whole want them to lead them.

Sounds like 'cometh the hour cometh the man'. So who is the man?

I think there’s a mood of the people that no one can probably explain and sometimes don’t recognise. Currently the mood of the people is that they want change and I don’t think anything will change that. If I was a sociologist I’d know the right terms to explain it but I’m not. Collective consciousness? And, when that happens a figurehead emerges to harness that feeling. Those people always exist but nothing happens to them until people as a whole want them to lead them. Which I know sounds like complete gobbledegook but I sort of know what I mean. Tolstoy referred to it in War and Peace.

Chestnut

Mamardoit I agree. And the idea of having websites dedicated to changing the way people vote is awful. They had an anti-Brexit one and they now have an anti-Tory one. I firmly believe people should vote for what they want, not against what they don't want.

People who are voting tactically are voting for what they want: they want the Tories out.

I remember a poll in the run up to the 1979 GE where voters were asked "if you thought that the Liberals would win, would you vote for them?".

42% said yes.

Of course most didn't vote Liberal. Most voted Tory and a smaller number Labour.

Simply because they knew that the Liberals did not stand a chance under the combination of a very biased media and the undemocratic FPTP electoral system.

Chestnut

Mamardoit I agree. And the idea of having websites dedicated to changing the way people vote is awful. They had an anti-Brexit one and they now have an anti-Tory one. I firmly believe people should vote for what they want, not against what they don't want.

There is also a site dedicated to voting tactically to reduce Labour’s chances though? You really can’t stop people being influenced by polls and choosing to vote tactically. I’m far more worried about a malign influence of social media, AI and bots than I am about responsibly conducted polls affecting the election.

I think they are very divisive. I have never, ever been asked about my voting intentions. I would rather people just vote for who they want rather than being influenced by polls.

Crossed posts Casdon 😄

Mamardoit I agree. And the idea of having websites dedicated to changing the way people vote is awful. They had an anti-Brexit one and they now have an anti-Tory one. I firmly believe people should vote for what they want, not against what they don't want.

I think often people have a much clearer idea of what they don’t want than what they do want though Chestnut, that’s why they vote tactically. If there were no polls, I think that would still happen, but it would be on the basis of historical electoral performance, so they would vote for whoever came second last time in an attempt to unseat the current incumbent.

They got the Brexit result wrong.

I'm not sure how useful they really are. I've never met a person who has been asked their voting intentions. Maybe that's because we live in a safe Tory seat. I think polls are taken in marginal constituencies.

We've never even had anyone knock on the door and ask us to vote for them. I feel very unloved!

I've no problem with other polls, but the pre-election ones can change the way people vote. It's all down to tactical voting which prevents people voting for what they actually want.

We are where we are though, there have been polls for 200 years, not just about politics but all aspects of life. I think they are actually helpful to provide a picture of the way people are thinking about whatever topic, and with the more sophisticated polls, what can be done to make positive change.

It's actually the fact that we don't have proportional representation - in my opinion.