Time for a check-up?

When people in general, politicians in particular, and communities as a whole get concerned about their health, a check-up is a good starting point toward scientific resolution of the problem.

The personal health check-up. When feeling sick or anxious about their personal health, people often consult a physician, depending on financial costs, convenience to them, et cetera, including their respect for medical science and familiarity with its procedures. Physicians have basic instruments for taking body temperature, blood pressure, pulse, height and weight, and if those do not suffice for the patient’s case, they normally direct the patient to have a health check-up.

If the physician lacks facilities, there are centers that provide fee-based diagnostic services, such as blood chemistry, urinalysis, x-rays, electrocardiograms, ultrasound, and so forth. The physician should specify the tests needed, and recommend a diagnostic center that is capable and affordable.

The physician expects data that are correct. Ideally, there should be data-records from previous check-ups for comparison. The patient will want to hear the bad news before the good news, and the recommended courses of action, which may call for specialists, if not within the physician’s personal expertise. Naturally, all the data and the responses of the physician and specialists are private matters.

The political health check-up. Similarly, a politician worried about personal political health, especially her/his electoral prospects, might consult a pollster, depending on familiarity with applied survey research and the costs involved. Once engaged, the pollster should be informed about any earlier (possibly secret) opinion polls, so that he may recommend a new one to bring out data capable of guiding the politician’s courses of action.

There are companies and institutions, including schools, that can be contracted for polling services, if the pollster lacks the personal capacity to undertake them. The pollster’s role is to recommend the survey-doer, specify the survey coverage, draw up the questionnaire—taking old questions from research experience, and crafting fresh ones appropriate to circumstances—analyze the data, and make recommendations.

Normal topics in an election-oriented poll are the people’s past voting behavior, their knowledge of and attitudes toward the politician and his/her (actual and/or potential) political allies and adversaries, and their perceptions of the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats pertinent to the politician and his/her allies and adversaries.

To minimize bias from responses, the poll should treat competing candidates symmetrically, so as not to hint which one could be the sponsor. The field interviewers need not know, and should not even be told of, the sponsor’s identity. All candidates would benefit from the poll; therefore, its findings should be confidential.

The courses for action may require specialists in creating messages—election campaign themes, for instance—for disseminating to the people. This would be a different task from the pollster’s specialty of listening to messages from the people. Naturally, the polling data and the actions to be taken should be strictly off limits to everyone, except the politician.

Checking on how actions taken are affecting the electoral campaign calls for multiple polling. The pollster should have a good understanding of the margins for statistical error so as not to over-spend on sample size.

Politicians should check on community well-being too. In polling about what their constituents think about them, politicians have a golden opportunity to learn, scientifically, about the well-being of the people they are supposed to represent.

Election challengers for local positions might ask respondents whether they feel better off, worse off, or only the same at present, compared to three years ago. Do they feel safe while walking the neighborhood at night? How do they rate corruption in various agencies of the government at present? How about three years ago?

A provincial electoral poll will reveal the prospects of candidates for governor, vice governor, and provincial board members. A city electoral poll will likewise help candidates for mayor, vice mayor, and board members. A provincial poll could be divided into two strata, one for the capital city and a second for other areas, and thus be cost-effective for so many beneficiaries. If a local media company sponsors it, it could be non-partisan by publishing the results for everyone.

In a democracy, political partisanship is fair play. There is no monopoly in survey research. Every group may survey public opinion in its own way. The findings of independent research groups that use scientific methods are bound to converge.

(Final word of advice: keep the data carefully, for the future!)

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mahar.mangahas@sws.org.ph