Only in the bizarre world of the Melbourne City council elections would a poll conducted by the candidate himself be accepted as legitimate.
Gary Morgan, who inherited the Roy Morgan Research company which was once the leading political polling company before Newspoll and others came along, has published the results of a survey of 330 electors.
The Herald Sun and the ABC republished them, with little questioning of their origin or methodology.
The poll description says both residents and business were polled. And then also suggests that only residents in the municipality were polled.
Disturbingly, it appears that only one candidate – Adam Bandt – had his party affiliation read out to survey respondents.
Confirming the largely useless nature of the poll is the fact that 31.5% of those surveyed said they were undecided about their first preference and a further 25% were undecided about their second.
Certainly the polling – if accurate – suggests that Doyle at this stage has the most visibility of all the candidates with 87.45 people of 330 supporting him . No surprise there, as a former state Liberal leader that he’d have the most visibility. Although some people might think it’s a surprise that it is possible to have .45 of a voter.
The other extremely odd aspect of the poll is the claim that the bloke who conducted the poll had 3.5% of first preference support with 18% giving him a second preference.
Leaving aside the ethical implications of a pollster candidate conducting polling on himself, these numbers don’t make a lot of sense at all.
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