A research team will be conducting a nationwide opinion poll for the upcoming 2017 general elections later this month through the use SMS technology.
Although there were attempts before to have similar surveys, this is said to be the first-of its-kind using electronic means, in particular, SMS technology.
Division for Public Policy Senior Lecturer at the University of Papua New Guinea, Dr. Lawrence Sause, says the survey will need as much publicity as possible. It will be conducted nationwide and this will harness voter preferences in terms of the people’s preferred candidates for the 2017 elections.
The survey will find out whether voter preference is an accurate predictor for the elections’ victory outcomes and will cover all 111 electorates in the country.
“Before the start of elections and during campaign and nomination periods, people would have preference over their choice of candidates and what we would like to do is to map out their choice and see if their predictions will work out after the elections,” Dr. Sause says.
Manually conducting the exercise is expected to be difficult because of the scope of the electorates in PNG.
Questions have been raised about whether opinion polls are clear predictors of the elections and their outcomes. This is why the research team is working to have its accuracy proven in the 2017 PNG elections.
“We will look at whether the pre elections predictions match the post elections results,” Senior Lecturer for Psychology Study – UPNG, Dr. Leo Marai, said.
There are two stages of the survey, of which the first is the pre elections, which will be rolled out in the coming weeks.
Dr. Marai states that people will make their choice of their four candidates, starting with the most preferred to the least preferred.
In the second stage, they will be cross-checked against the outcomes and result of the 2017 elections.