Do polls influence voters?

A snapshot of public opinion at a given moment, opinion polls have not only become essential indicators in election campaigns - they have also come to play a part in them. An analysis by Roland Cayrol.

In my eyes there is one image that speaks volumes about the role of opinion polls in French political life [1]. One day "ardoisiers" appeared on the Tour de France cycle race - those motorcyclists carrying boards that they brandish in front of competitors to tell them how many minutes or seconds they are in front of or behind the pack. Since their appearance the Tour has never been quite the same! Opinion pollsters have become the ‘ardoisiers’ of election campaigns.

In France, it is presidential elections that have given polls their visibility. The media make considerable use of them: hardly a day goes by without a new poll, with that particularly French media characteristic of having no hesitation at all about quoting other papers’ polls as well as their own, much to the appreciation of the public, which follows the "race" with intense interest.

To inform public opinion

This characteristic of the French press must be recognised - opinion polls relate not only to voting intentions. The citizen is informed not only about the "ratings" of each candidate, but also about the dominant issues, individuals and values. The polls also reveal the distribution of opinion by age, sex, social class and occupation or voters’ political sympathies.

This obviously raises the question of how to assess the impact of these polls on democratic life. They are used primarily by the candidates and their staff, for whom they provide a picture of public opinion. They are also used by the media, especially television - the more marginalised a candidate is in the polls the more he or she is ignored by the media. This has a cumulative effect: a little known candidate who gets off to a bad start receives poor coverage from the media, which hardly helps him or her to become known and win over the electorate [2]... The publication of polls tends to amplify the discrepancy in treatment between candidates "with a chance of winning" and candidates "for form’s sake". Thus polls in France play the role of "primaries" by establishing a hierarchy between the candidates standing for office.

Are voters influenced by polls? When asked about the resources useful to them in making their choice, about 3 to 5 % mention them. This is not huge, even though it should be remembered that final victory is often won by a smaller margin of votes.

In reality, the quality of the campaign carries more weight than the opinion polls: Édouard Balladur in 1995 and Lionel Jospin in 2002 started out heading the polls but nonetheless did not win the election! They disappointed and progressively lost the support of a large number of their potential supporters. The poll results recorded these falls, in the case of Balladur/Chirac the graphs crossed over each other during the campaign. In the case of Jospin/Le Pen they reflected the trend, but in 2002 the polls did not anticipate the extreme right candidate moving ahead of the socialist party candidate, for which they are still frequently and bitterly reproached.

The era of "the tactical voter"

Having become a strategist in using his vote, the voter now knows the relative strengths of the candidates. He may decide to vote "tactically" for a candidate in a position to win, or the opposite, choosing to lodge a protest vote against results that appear to be a foregone conclusion. Thus, in 2002, left-wing voters wanted to send a message to their parties and in the first round abandoned support for Jospin, judged not very convincing, in favour of other candidates.

The legitimacy of the influence of polls is regularly challenged. But it may be thought that knowledge of the relative strengths of the candidates is a useful element in deciding how to vote - preferable, at any rate, to the circulation of uncontrolled rumours: today’s voter chooses who to vote for in full knowledge of the facts. Knowing what is happening in the race, he assesses the weight of his vote, and hence his individual responsibility, fully aware of what he is doing.

1] Cf. the review Pouvoirs, "Voter" [Voting] , No. 120, January 2007.

[2] This unequal access to the media has never been so roundly condemned as during the current campaign for the 2007 presidential elections, by candidates such as the centrist François Bayrou and the former Minister of the Environment Corinne Lepage, who have made it a democratic issue

[Roland Crayol is the Director of the CSA polling institute]

Posted on : 2007-12-25 17:19:14

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