Opinion polls, which gauge voter intentions
and attitudes, are an important part of elections coverage in most countries. Publication
of opinion poll findings is a subject that arouses strong passions. Established
democracies take quite contrary positions on the issue. Sixteen of the
twenty-seven European Union countries, for example, ban reporting of polls,
although timeframes range from a full month to just 24 hours before election day.
Only three countries - Italy, Slovakia and Luxembourg - have bans of
more than seven days. In many of the EU countries, legal challenges in recent
years have reduced the time period over which the ban applies.[1]
Meanwhile
in the United States media coverage of opinion polls is regarded as an integral
part of free speech in elections and publication is allowed at any time. The
problem is that opinion poll results - like almost any other form of expression
- are not just the reflection of people's views but may also shape the views of
others. That is, people may be influenced in how they vote by what they have
learned from an opinion poll... or what they think they have learned.
For
this reason, laws or regulations may attempt to control how (or even whether)
opinion polls are reported. In Montenegro, for example, publicly-owned media
are forbidden to publicize the results of opinion polls or any other projection
of the election results. On voting day, it is even forbidden to publicize the
results of previous elections.
However,
a total ban on reporting opinion poll findings, whether or not desirable, is
scarcely practical. France had long had a ban on the reporting of opinion polls
in the week before elections (although not at other times). In the 1997
legislative elections some newspapers broke this regulation. They included Le Parisien and La Republique des Pyrennees. Liberation got round the ban by
putting the findings of an opinion poll on its Internet site, which is linked
to the Tribune de Geneve
in Switzerland. France Soir
followed this by publishing a poll before the second round of voting took
place.[i]
This seems a fairly clear case of a law becoming ineffective once it has fallen
into disrepute - despite the fact that it had been respected for many years –
and the French ban has since been reduced to 24 hours.
In the
UK, the broadcast regulator the Office of Communications (Ofcom) Code requires
broadcasters to refrain from publishing the results of opinion polls only on
election day itself; as do the BBC’s editorial guidelines.
With
opinion polls, more than most other issues, much hinges on how professionally
the findings are reported (for more information, see section on Media
Professionalism). The Montenegrin position of imposing a total ban on the
public media's reporting opinion polls might find some favour in a situation
where distorted reporting could materially affect the outcome of the elections.
Generally, however, this is an issue that is best addressed by applying a light
touch and encouraging the media to develop their own standards for reporting.
[1] “Political
Opinion Polls,” Spotlight, No. 1, 2009, Oireachtas Library and Research
Service.
[i] Helen
Darbishire, "Media and the Electoral Process" in Media and democracy, (Strasbourg: Council of Europe, 1998), 96.
