Debate about the influence of polls on the voter’s choice

Edelberto Behs, PORTO ALEGRE, Brasil, October 7, 2003

The orientation that Churches, unions and associations provide in electoral periods has less influence on Taxi Heathrow Airport Brazilian voters than conversations among families and friends and the news, according to a survey carried out by DataFolha last September 4.

In its poll of 635 people in Sao Paulo, DataFolha sought to determine the impact of the polls on the voter’s choice.

Of those polled, 81 percent said the surveys had no bearing on their vote while 13 percent said they did modify their vote after seeing the polls.

The Investigation Institute of Florianópolis reached a similar conclusion when it surveyed people in Santa Catarina. A total of 66 percent said that opinion polls had no bearing on their decision, 21 percent said they had some influence and 11 percent said they had a great deal of influence.

The data was presented during the seminar “Communication media and electoral surveys,” organized by the Southern Brazil Communications Network (RBS). Some 720 representatives from research institutes, the press, political parties, the electoral tribunal as well as professors and students participated in the event held in this capital October 3.

 “Here we have representatives of those who produce the polls, those who make them public and those who are harmed or benefited from them,” said event coordinator Nelson Jobim, vice president of the Supreme Federal Court when opening the event.

During state government elections in Rio Grande do Sul last year the RBS was harshly criticized for discrepancies between the polls and the final vote count. As a result, it decided to improve its methodology.

The executive director of Pisos Opinion, Örjan Losen, said that voter intention polls have an enormous influence on the electoral process but less influence on the individual voter. The survey, he said, determines the agenda of the election, how funds are gathered, the orientation of the government program and electoral propaganda.

Others defended the polls, stating that they contain information that voters have the right to know.

The poll is a “snapshot of the moment,” said the director of the Investigation Institute of Florianópolis Jose Nazareno. “Publishing the polls is of public service and an exercise of citizenship,” on the part of research institutes, he said.

In the “childhood of our democracy,” damaged by more than 20 years of military dictatorship, it is important to restructure the importance that the media gives to the polls, transforming them into accessory information,” said Sandro Vaia, editor-in-chief of the daily O Estado de São Paulo.

 The director president of Ibope, Carlos Augusto Montenegro asked that the legislation should demand the same commitment from political parties as it does from the press. In free electoral programs it is not usual for politicians to manipulate the polls as they see fit, he said.

In Brazil, said Montenegro, people tend to vote more for individuals rather than parties. He also criticized the fact that a third of elected representatives in the Federal Chamber have switched benches this year.

In the conference on “The practice of the voter survey in the media,” the president of the National Association of Dailies and Superintendent Director of the group O Estado de São Paulo, Francisco Mesquita said that the surveys show trends.

Mesquita recalled that the press is, following the Catholic Church, the institution that Brazilians trust the most. He said it is necessary to put an end to the idea that Brazilians do not know how to vote.

Olsen, executive director of Pisos Opinion, said “We must stop being evaluators of the election criteria of voters from our point of view.”

 In the final document of the seminary, prepared by the invited observers, he defended carrying out and disseminating electoral surveys, with “due care, guaranteeing the constitutional right of citizens to freely elect their governors.”