This is my first foray into this forum and it has been a topic that I've been thinking about for awhile. It also very prominently surfaced again at the last Australian federal election.

Just as some background for the Australian context, there were some 50 opinion polls before the federal election last Saturday that had the conservatives behind. I've illustrated it below:



Coming up to election day, the opinion polls had been getting closer to the point that the conservatives were only 51-49 behind but nearly all the pundits still thought the Labor party (i.e. the progressives) were going to win. I commented more than 2 weeks before the election in the 2 plus 2 thread on the online poker ban thread for Australia that:

https://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/s...postcount=3973

But that wasn't a complete picture of the reasons why I thought the opinion polling would be different on election day. Something that I think should be more widely acknowledged, especially by the progressives out there, that there is a fear amongst certain voters that they don't wish for their views to be known (i.e. they won't answer pollsters questions) but more importantly they are willing to give views that don't truly represent what they are going to do at the ballot box.

These are the people that I call the "quiet conservatives" (Scott Morrison who won for the conservatives calls them the "quiet Australians").

So I'd like to ask:

1. whether others think this is a problem that I have identified (we saw what happened with the 2016 US presidential opinion polling too not to mention with the last UK elections and Brexit) and

2. if so, why are these people not engaging willingly or truthfully in the political debate and what's the answer.

A useful article it appears on topic is this one: http://newsroom.kpmg.com.au/why-were...ion-pre-polls/

The same problem is well known in the UK. Pollsters try to adjust for it.

Part of it is down to age rather than fear. Older voters come from a time when people generally didn't reveal how they voted. As older people are also more likely to be conservative it's biases the polling data towards the left.

Some is the bias of people wanting to give the answer they think is wanted. I'm not sure 'fear'is the right description as much as a desire for approval.

Some is people kidding themselves about how they will vote. The classic is being vocally in favour of more public spending but then when the decision moment comes, voting for the lot promising to cut your taxes instead.

At least for the Australian context, fear is the right word. When people are getting stabbed for who they support you really can't put any qualification on how I've put it. Sad but it is the reality.

https://www.news.com.au/national/fed...0c174c979bac63

That's fear in a public setting but are those being professionally polled in a more threatening situation than when they vote?

Social desirability bias is the "professional" name for the effect where people tend to interpret questions as wanting specific answers. In election polls one of the "big" variables that get effected is questions about how likely you are to vote, where answers tend to be greatly exaggarated.

A broader category is "response bias" which is more an umbrella term for various factors that influence survey responses to be inaccurate or false. A big factor here is poorly constructed surveys or questions.

One of the more well known trends is that men report far more sex partners than women, so either the responses are funky or the men are going at it with each-other in record numbers.

What part of this do you think could be problematic, exactly? Polling numbers being off? Chezlaw mentioned olds not being particularly forthcoming with their voting choices, but I'd go one step further and say that conservatives in general are probably more likely to keep their cards close to their chest, not just old people. Virtue signaling and political proselytizing in public seem like activities you'll find more on the left than the right. Still, I don't see how this is a problem unless you make a living by selling accurate polling data.


You're posting on a forum that exists primarily because the old one was filled with liberals who spent their days dreaming up new insults for and ways of dunking on the "deplorables." This is not a hard one to answer.

Not every conservative is a "DEY TOOK ER JERBS" boorish rioter just like not every liberal is a pompous *******, but one side definitely takes the bigger hit in the public eye. Can you blame certain conservatives for not wanting to put themselves on a list identifying them as such?

We had an interesting reverse example here in Wisconsin when the liberals threw a fit and tried to recall our conservative Governor back in 2011 because they were being sore losers. Every single person who signed that recall petition was subsequently put into a searchable database, which has since been used to torpedo more than one political career. Typically liberals trying to pass themselves off as moderate/conservative in things like school board or local council elections in conservative areas of the state. http://iverifytherecall.com/Search.aspx

seriously like what does it say about your values and opinions if you are too ashamed to state them publicly.

I can't speak for everyone, but for me it has nothing to do with being ashamed. I have had plenty of civilized political conversations with people who don't share my ideals on everything.

I've also witnessed live arguments that devolved into stuff like this:




The "****ING WHITE MALE" is never going to come out on top in today's climate, and is probably of the personality type that they didn't want to get into it to begin with.

We aren't talking about every single conservative here. OP is referring to a small number who are skewing polls. In a world where there are people like you who blanket label their values and opinions as shameful when we aren't even talking about specific examples, I can certainly see why they're keeping it to themselves.

I'm a white male and I'm doing pretty well. YMMV?

Yeah sorry, that was a bit of a drive-by comment and could've used more detail. With the quoted subject, I was referring specifically to whatever dude that angry kid is arguing with in the context of that argument.

You're not going to sway the opposition and if you say or do anything that can even be incorrectly assigned some significance, you'll just get Nick Sandmann'd. In that sense, there's no point in putting yourself out there today as a conservative. It cannot end well unless you're speaking to an echo chamber, so most don't bother, and some will even go so far as to hide it.

You've never inflated an answer into something you think seems better?

Well firstly they have been a lot of the reasons why we disposed of 2 prime ministers in about 3 years (2015 and then 2018). And when they are shown to be unreliable that's a problem given that it is arguably undemocratic for a party to dump a prime minister that has been elected by the people (or should I say taken to the election as the party's leader).

The 2nd point I'd like to make is that when parties think they are in a dominant position because of these consecutive opinion polls (especially when they have been "in front" for 3 years of them) it places them into a situation where they feel that they can have a much more broader policy platform or pursue specific policies that they wouldn't if they had a more accurate measure of the voting intentions of the public.

Now, you may say so what that it is up to the people to decide and you'd be right but when there are so many little variables and uncontrollable things that go on during election campaigns and when the opposing party from those polls is at actual best 50-50 or 51-49 in front that it is so easy for that party who was ahead in the opinion polls for 3 years to still win and implement its broad policy platform when, like I said, that if the opinion polling was more accurate it is highly unlikely that they would have pursued such a platform.

Would that include workplaces?



Yes it would only be in the region of at most 5% of voters.

Why do you think they are ashamed?

1) I don't know why one would assume that any individual poll is anything other then agitprop. Yes, "J'accuse".

2) what is the benefit to the poll-ee to respond at all? IOW, polls are self-selecting. Is this correctly accounted for? See #1.

3) what is the consequence for a polling organization who routinely shows skew, bias or large error tolerances. Does anyone ever check this particular poll's track record?

4) poll results are not election results. Really understand this before you lay any faith in polls

5) momentum is more important then intermediate results.

Excellent point, if you have nothing to hide you have nothing to fear.

There are times when you have to hide your ass.

the old politics forum was outstanding info, but awful for integrating dissenting opinion. literal flames engulfed posts that weren't very well put together, instead of like, "hey, here's a book you can read, h.a.n.d."

i could be wrong but that was my lens of it. probably similar at UCBerkeley a few years ago or whatever.

He didn't label their values as shameful, they did, by, wait for it, being hypothetically ashamed to state them.

The two get combined don't they? Some (maybe enough to explain the whole issue) aren't sure about who they will vote for. They are somewhat conflicted on the issues because they want all the good stuff but also worry about how it will be paid for

If you force someone to tell you how they will vote when they haven't yet decided how they will vote then there's an error is introduced. That error may then be likely to favour the side offering more of the good stuff.

ive always respected those who speak silently and carry a big stick. its called having enough self assurance and confidence to not be an attention whore.

it's just a myth that parties on the right do better than their polls. it's not actually true https://fivethirtyeight.com/features...rump-ever-was/


what youre doing now is called selection bias. you pick the one example that supports your theory and ignore or have forgotten all the ones that dont

I find it fascinating that in todays climate, there's any question as to why someone could withhold their opinions for valid reasons. Someone with the value they believe in the concept of a country might actually avoid public discourse. Just think it through, someone can start with that value and never reach that point before they have been publicly ostracized, fired, etc. for not siding or voting with the woke party

The UK 'shy conservative' effect may not apply to extremists in the same way but as pollsters in the UK adjust for it, looking at the adjusted poll data is not expected to find the bias. It also may be diminishing.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shy_Tory_factor

https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2019/05/25/u...deo/index.html