Pollsters 'asked wrong people' in general election failure

The failure of pollsters to predict May’s general election may have been because Conservative voters take longer to find, a report has suggested. 

Previously, the polling disparities have been blamed on “shy Tories” or voters who changed their minds late in the election.

But in a new report pollster Prof John Curtice has argued samples did not have enough Conservatives within them when polling is taken over only a couple of days. The British Social Attitudes Survey, for example, took longer to select and track down interviewees and the results more accurately reflected the result.

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Pre-election polls suggested the result would be very close between Ed Miliband's Labour and the Tories. Instead the Conservatives secured an overall majority of 12 seats. Opinion polls carried out after the election continued to be inaccurate, which Curtice suggests shows a flaw in the selection process of who to poll, rather than a reluctance of Conservative voters to identify themselves.

He argued the issue came about "primarily because they interviewed too many Labour supporters and not enough Conservatives".

Last year, NatCen, who Curtice wrote the report for, interviewed 4,238 people for a British Social Attitudes Survey.

This year, the group has made efforts to get back in touch with the interviewees.

Of the group, the easiest to contact put Labour in a six-point lead. The hardest to contact, those who took three to six calls to speak to, gave the Tories an 11-point lead.

"Polls are conducted over just two or three days, which means they are more likely to interview those who are contacted most easily, either over the internet or via their phone," the report said.

Curtice remarked: "A key lesson of the difficulties faced by the polls in the 2015 general election is that surveys not only need to ask the right questions but also the right people."

The British Polling council is set to publish its findings into the failed predictions of May’s general election next month.