Evi Mustel, head of Mustel, stated her opinions today about the Angus Reid Strategies poll:

“The poll was conducted by the firm using a relatively new online polling method.

But not all polling companies fully support the polling method.

Evi Mustel of the Mustel Group, a Vancouver based polling company, said because of the way online polling groups are put together, it is impossible to determine the actual margin of error for the poll.

Furthermore, Mustel said the polling industry actually frowns upon firms publishing margins of error for online polls.

That’s because online panels might not be truly representative, explained Mustel, because only one in four households in Canada has an internet connection, and those that sign up for the online panels tend to work less and have lower levels of education than the national average.

Telephone polls are more accurate because a higher percentage of Canadians still have a telephone connection in their home.”

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/british-columbia/story/2008/08/27/bc-liberal-ndp-poll.html

And somehow I don’t dispute Mustel’s analysis considering that her firm has been “bang on” in terms of both the last federal and provincial election results in BC:

http://www.mustelgroup.com/accuracy.asp

This is why I’m holding back judgment until the other pollsters do their thing. Somehow I wouldn’t be surprised to see BCL 46%, NDP 40% and Green 13% or something like that.

Harris-Decima and Ipsos have also given different results on the federal side of polling.

Mustel and Ipsos:

Over the past 10 – 15 years both Mustel and Ipsos have conducted regular quarterly snapshots of BC public opinion, have a proven track record, and essentially mirror each others results.

Over the past 3 years, both pollsters have not only shown the Liberals to be in the lead, but by significant margins… 10% – 18%. And that trend has remained stable during that time frame.

Both took their latest snapshots during June showing the Liberals with a continuous lead. [Mustel - 10%, Ipsos - 14%]
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Other Pollsters Attempts:

Over the years, other pollsters have released BC political preference polls that were out of whack with both Mustel’s and Ipsos’ results. One such interesting poll was counducted by Strategic Counsel (CTV News national pollster) just before the last provincial election.

It garnered wide media publicity and showed the Liberals with a wide lead, which turned out not to be true.

SC was pilloried afterward by both the media and online for being out of whack with the actual election results.

SC has never produced another snapshot of BC public opinion.
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Angus Reid Strategies:

Angus Reid believes that the new frontier in polling is “online polling” and that’s how they conduct their polls, as opposed to the regular telephone polling conducted by other pollsters.

They recruit their sample size through their website:

http://rm.angusreidforum.com/?cid=1870&rs=PBCEnGGt#

They release new polls almost everyday on their website and I followed their political preference polls for the first time during the last Alberta election.

ARS had polls showing voters favouring a change in government in excess of 50%, 20% approval ratings for PC Premier Stelmach, and I was under the impression that a seismic shift was taking place in Alberta.

Turned out to be wrong. In fact, ARS placed *last* out of four pollsters in terms of accurately predicting the Alberta election.

It left a sour taste in my mouth as I look for accuracy to properly politically prognosticate.

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Angus Reid Strategies – BC:

While they are situate in Vancouver, ARS has NEVER released a BC political preference poll. Then a couple of weeks ago (?), the NDP released its own internal ARS results showing the NDP just 1% behind the Liberals.

The Vancouver Sun story stated that the “first five questions were…” and I, amongst many, came to the conclusion that the results were part of a mild push poll.

Such musings also occurred in the mainstream media as well as on the ‘net.

In last Saturday’s Vancouver Sun, Angus Reid wrote a letter to the editor stating that he has never conducted push polls and that he has never asked the party preference question “last”, which I found to be curious.

Methinks that Angus Reid became miffed at the repeated negative push pull tone of those NDP internal poll results by commissioning another independent BC public opinion poll to clear the air.

When I heard about the results today I was astounded. Could it be??? Does it make sense???? It’s only their second party preference poll ever released. But a 3% NDP lead totally contradicting both Mustel and Ipsos????
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Summer Months and Polling:

Most opinion pollsters stay away from polling during the summer months due to the holiday period and people don’t necessarily have politics on their mind.

Mustel/Ipsos in June had an average 12% lead for the Liberals. In order for a 15% reversal in favour of the NDP to occur during the summer months a major political seismic event would have to occur… something akin to front page headlines with Campbell facing serious charges such as fraud, IMHO.

The carbon tax???? Ipsos had 59% opposition in their June poll spread roughly evenly amonst all three parties. Many New Democrats have expressed disatisfaction woth their parties position. That couldn’t be the seismic political event.

The deputy ministers pay raises???? A minor goof by the Liberals but couldn’t be.

Then I looked closer at the actual Angus Reid Strategies poll and discovered a few strange things. For example:

1. Both Mustel and Ipsos have consistently had both party leaders approval ratings in the 40% plus range over the past couple of years… ARS? in the 20% range. The approval questions are similar. I thought hmmmmmmm.

2. Mustel had “fuel prices” as the top issue of concern for voters in June. ARS??? Energy (the only relevant category) was abysmally low at ~2% near the bottom of the list. Hmmmmmmm…
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To Sum It All Up:

I’m leary of ARS and its online polling techniques and the previous track record with its out of whack results obtained during the Alberta election. Better wait for Mustel and Ipsos quarterly results in September. Methinks this ARS poll will receive negative scrutiny akin to the Strategic Counsel poll released just before the May, 2005 election.