The views expressed in this article are those of the writer and not necessarily those of Breaking Belize News.
By Dr. Philip Castillo: Polling is both an art and a science. As an art, it involves personally interacting with people and, as a science, the information obtained from that interaction is revealed in probabilistic forecasts. An abundance of polls were undertaken for the just-concluded midterm elections in the USA. In following both the polling and election night returns, some comparisons to Belize became obvious.
America has nearly 260 million voters broken down into 51 states, including its capital, and over 2,200 counties. Belize has 212,000 voters broken down into six districts and 31 constituencies. A poll starts when the pollster obtains a sample frame. This is the list of all voters who can potentially vote. In the USA, this list has phone numbers, thereby making potential voters reachable via that means of communication. Belize’s electoral office does not provide phone numbers. In any event, using only the phone to undertake polls introduces errors called non-coverage and non-response errors. Non-coverage occurs since there are voters who do not have phone numbers or listed phone numbers. Non-response occurs when voters do not answer their phones or consent to be polled. Pollsters have ways of addressing these errors.
From the sampling frame, pollsters draw a random sample, around 1,000 in the USA. I am not aware of any national political polls in Belize, but our statistical agency, the Statistical Institute of Belize, generally uses a sample size of around 3,000 for its national surveys. The sample is a small-scale replica of the population, and pollsters do their best to ensure that all the characteristics of the population are captured in the sample. However, there will always be a difference between the larger voting population and the smaller sample drawn from that population. Pollsters use a statistic called margin of error to account for this difference and accurately measure this potential error.
Incumbency is supposed to offer advantages. The incumbent government has the resources of the government to use in its campaigning. The incumbent can also engage in pre-election chicanery to consolidate its advantages. In the USA, there was widespread gerrymandering undertaken by the Republicans. In Belize, the known chicanery also occurs pre-elections when, during the months of July and August, there is the voter transfer period. Voters are paid to transfer to a new constituency where they nominally reside at a “safe house.” In reality, they have absolutely no affiliation with that constituency, but will show up on election day. Gerrymandering didn’t work for the Republicans. The jury is still out on whether voter transfers have any meaningful influence on final results in any constituency in Belize.
Money has an outsized influence in both countries. In the USA, the world’s richest man, Elon Musk, reportedly spent nearly a half billion US dollars on the elections. He lost bigly. The two recent internal elections in Belize offer contrasting findings. Purely from observation in a country that has no campaign finance laws, in the PUP mayoral race in Belize City, the candidate whose campaign appears to have spent the most money won. But in the PUP Corozal Town mayoral election, the reverse seemed to have occurred. What gives?
An obvious similarity may be incumbency. In both Belize City and Corozal Town, the incumbent won. Small clarification: the incumbent Mayor in Belize City was term-limited, but he threw his full support behind his Deputy. Perhaps incumbency does offer advantages since incumbency provides visibility or voters may genuinely be satisfied with the status quo. But perhaps there may have been other variables at play. Perhaps the winning PUP candidates in Belize City and Corozal ran genuinely superior campaigns. What about candidate quality concerns? Did that factor into voting behaviour?
But back to money. It can’t be separated from politics. The consensus is that it’s better to have lots of money than not to have it. But perhaps more important than the amount of money is how a campaign spends the money that it has. Former President Barack Obama used volunteers to knock on doors and operate phone banks. Voters were asked if they could bring at least five other persons to the polls. If you can’t bring five, then at least three? But do bring along someone. Sometimes not having money encourages creative thinking.
In the USA, early voting is normal, and in some states, it is possible to vote weeks before the actual election day. Not so in Belize, where all voting is done on the actual election day. In Belize, proxy voting occurs, and this provides yet another opportunity where voters can be bribed. Both countries have laws against bribing voters. In both countries, such laws are ignored. Bacon houses have now become a terminology in Belizean politics.
In the USA, voting by mail is routine, and this facilitates participation from America’s population spread globally. Not so in Belize, despite its known and acknowledged diaspora population. To vote, they must come home on that day.
Polling predicts, but more than that, it also shapes campaigns, ascertains candidate characteristics that attract or repel voters, and provides information that campaigns can use to sharpen their messages, reallocate resources, give themselves an electoral advantage and otherwise dictate campaign strategy. This occurs via the use of cross-tabulation. Cross-tabs break down poll results by variables such as gender, demography, age, location, or any other variable that the campaign deems to be important.
Years ago, I found that ethnicity correlates poorly with voting behaviour in the culture capital, Dangriga. But this may not be so in other parts of the country, or in the USA, where race and religion could be determining factors in local races. Cross-tabs provide the data that campaigns can use to easily target their actual supporters, potential supporters and reachable voters. Resources are thereby used more efficiently and effectively.
In Belize, many voters are becoming less comfortable with publicly revealing their political preferences. This also occurs in the USA and is manifested by historically low voter turnouts. In the USA, though, because apparently one can actually register to vote and cast a ballot on election day, it becomes possible to target marginal voters who generally didn’t engage in politics, distrust institutions or have low civic engagement. Some marginal voters or non-voters may also be single-issue voters, and with targeting facilitated by cross-tabulation, they can be reached even on election day itself.
In the run-up to the US elections, a telling statistic was the approval rating of President Trump. Basically, an approval rating poll provides a barometer of the national mood. His approval rating exhibited a continuous downward trend and, on election day, hovered in the low 30s. A similar approval rating poll of Prime Minister Briceño would also provide insights into the national mood.
Finally, exit polling. Not yet done in Belize. Exit polls in the USA showed that the single issue that was most dominant in voters’ decisions was affordability/cost of living.
Thank you for your attention to this matter.
Dr. Philip Castillo is a development economist and independent pollster. He can be reached at [email protected].
The post Polling is an art and a science- USA and Belize comparisons appeared first on Belize News and Opinion on www.breakingbelizenews.com.
The views expressed in this article are those of the writer and not necessarily those of Breaking Belize News. By Dr. Philip Castillo: Polling is both an art and a science. As an art, it involves personally interacting with people and, as a science, the information obtained from that interaction is revealed in probabilistic forecasts.
The post Polling is an art and a science- USA and Belize comparisons appeared first on Belize News and Opinion on www.breakingbelizenews.com.
