Investigation conducted by the Hot Pepper suggests that the three major political parties in the up-coming October 10, 2023 general and presidential elections, the Coalition for Democratic Change (CDC), Unity Party (UP) and Collaborating Political Parties (CPP), are all headed to the election with false claims of victory owing to faulty polling results which, if not rectified, may become a conduit for the parties to claim that the election was rigged by the winner and create an unfavorable cloud over the peace and stability of the country.
As of date, according to the investigation done by the Hot Pepper, all three of the leading political parties have done polls, with only the CPP following the methodology of sampling public opinion. Even though their procedures were in the right direction, the outcome of the polls were faulty and misleading.
According to the investigation, the CPP conducted three separate opinion polls: the first poll, the benchmark poll, putting the CPP in the distance third to the UP and the CDC.
The pollsters, being knowledgeable about what they were doing, conducted the second poll, the bushfire poll, to determine their current position since Alexander Cummings was introduced to the Liberian people as the Political Leader of the CPP and his quest to contest in the October 10, 2023 presidential election.
According to the Hot Pepper investigation, the bushfire poll placed Cummings and his CPP in second place to the Unity Party, and the CDC trailing in third place.
The last or third poll conducted, the tracking poll, which is to lead them to campaign, suggested that Alexander Cummings and the CPP were in the lead, followed by the Unity Party and the CDC coming distant third. From the investigation, the predominant views expressed by those samples were centered around economic hardship, the lack of jobs, and the domino effects on their respective dining room tables. Owing to the faulty poll results, Cummings and his CPP have coined their campaign slogans and promised to make the economic situation better by creating more job opportunities for the Liberian people.
Why Is The Opinion Polls Conducted By Cummings’ CPP Faulty?
The elementary posture of conducting an opinion poll, if all things remain constant, the margin of error, the sample size, the question or questions to be polled, the paraphrasing of the poll questions in case of an uneducated person, the age group (18 years and above) are all elements to be considered before venturing into conducting an opinion poll.
If those steps were followed, how did the pollsters calculate the sample size? Which counties were polled? What is the population per county polled and their respective sample size per county? What was the sample size per county polled that expressed the views and aspirations of the Liberian people?
Judging from the 2022 population census, there are 5,248,621 (five million two hundred forty-eight thousand six hundred and twenty-one) inhabitants in Liberia, and using Montserrado County as a case study, the sample size used by the pollsters were extremely small to express the views and aspirations of the Liberian nation and people.
All things being constant, and using Montserrado County as a case study, the 2022 population of 5.2 million calculates to 71,898 inhabitants per constituent. If Montserrado Country alone has seventeen (17) constituencies, multiplied by 71,898 inhabitants per constituent, with a margin of error of plus or minus 1.5, one can safely suggest that Montserrado County has a population of 1,222,266 (one million two hundred and twenty-two thousand two hundred and sixty-six) inhabitants.
If a pollster is to calculate the sample size per constituency, the minimum sample size to be applied should be about three hundred (300) respondents per constituency. To reduce the margin of error and make the poll’s result more accurate, the pollsters would have to do a random sample of mostly family heads because the likelihood of family heads being the opinion leaders of their respective household is extremely high.
If 300 family heads are randomly polled to express the views and aspirations of a consistency with a margin of error of plus or minus 2.5, then the minimum sample size of Montserrado County (300 × 17) will be about five thousand one hundred (5,100) respondents, and not seven hundred respondents polled by Alexander Cumming’s CPP.
If Cumming’s CPP got all the methodology correct except for the sample size, the time is still of essence to have the polls corrected and get the accurate account of his stake in the presidential election.