Election Polls: Latino Voters Not Being Counted?
Monday, November 08, 2010
The polls used in the election may not have fully accounted for the influence of the Latino vote, explaining why some candidates—especially independent Lincoln Chafee—garnered more votes than expected, according to a local political scientist.
The issue is more than just one for political junkies and scholars to mull over, says Tony Affigne, a professor at Providence College. “It’s a problem for democracy,” Affigne told GoLocalProv. Polls that erroneously show one candidate doing better than other, may cause Latinos and other groups to become demoralized and discouraged, leading them to become less active in a campaign, according to Affigne.
One national case in point is the re-election of Nevada Senator Harry Reid. Pre-election polls showed his opponent, Sharron Angle, ahead, but Reid ended up winning by nearly 6 points. One reason the polls could have been so off: they did not fully account for the Latino vote, according to Latino Decisions, a Seattle-based polling firm.
GET THE LATEST BREAKING NEWS HERE -- SIGN UP FOR GOLOCAL FREE DAILY EBLAST‘Most pollsters’ not using bilingual interviewers
Affigne said local polls could have fallen into the same pittfalls if they did not use bilingual interviewers and make sure their sample of voters included enough Latinos. “It’s a strong suspicion based on evidence from other parts of the country and that most pollsters in Rhode Island have not systematically, consistently used bilingual interviewers,” Affigne said.
Eric Hyers, campaign manager for Congressional candidate David Cicilline agreed. “I would say the Latino community is probably undersampled in a lot of polling,” Hyers said. “A lot of polling firms don’t use Spanish speakers because when they do these things they contract out to call centers and my understanding is (if) a calling center is fully bilingual it costs a lot more money.”
Joseph Fleming, the pollster for WPRI 12, said he did not ask his calling center, which is out of state, to include bilingual interviewers. Fleming said his surveys also do not have questions about race or ethnicity. Victor Profughi, the pollster for NBC 10, did not know if the Warwick-based calling center he uses, Public Insights, has bilingual interviewers. (A company official could not be reached for comment.) But Profughi said he checks the sample of voters to make sure Latinos are included.
“I haven’t felt the need to adjust or weight those samples. Those samples—they’ve seemed reasonable,” Profughi told GoLocalProv. “I would say that we probably underrepresented (Latinos) but not to the extent that data was invalid.”
Latinos in the race for governor
Affigne points to the race for governor. Before Election Day, independent Lincoln Chafee was polling at 33 percent—based on an average of the individual polls taken beforehand, according to Affigne. Chafee won with 36.1 percent of the vote. He says the Latino vote could be a major reason why Chafee did better.
Both Profughi and Fleming maintained that their polls accurately reflected the election results. (Click here for the final NBC 10 poll, here for WPRI 12, and here for the election results.) Profughi and Fleming said Chafee won more votes due to the simple fact that the undecided voters in their polls had to make a decision by Election Day. “Those undecideds had to go somewhere,” Profughi said.
Latinos on the rise
In Rhode Island, Latinos represent about 12.1 percent of the population. Nationwide, they constitute 15.8 percent. As the numbers of Latinos continues to rise, Affigne says pollsters everywhere will have to adjust their methods accordingly.
“It’s not just Rhode Island and the Southwest. Pollsters everywhere will have to do a much better job of actually polling and estimating the Latino vote if they have any hope of providing useful information,” Affigne said.
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