September 26, 2023
Polls under-counting Māori voters
A Māori political scientist and commentator says political polling is unreliable when it comes to measuring Māori preferences.
Dr Lara Greaves from the University of Auckland says Māori are less likely to do polls, and for those that do answer, the polling companies scale up their results to make up for the shortfall.
She says in past elections Te Pāti Māori results have been underestimated by about half a percent, and New Zealand First has also done better than polls predicted.
“Māori tend to be more supportive of New Zealand First on average and the kind of people who also support New Zealand are way suspicious of polling and people trying to get their political opinion, so that’s the argument or the two things I’m watching,” she says.
Dr Greaves says the media companies which commission polls like to get a bang for their bucks, but journalists often don’t have the skills to interpret them properly or to flag potential bias in the questions.