The problem with opinion polls

The problem is that such data, based on people's responses, as with political opinions for election analysis, is overly subjective and imprecise, and the resultant statistics are prone to misuse

As I write this column, we have just ended one more of our periodic public pageants of expressing opinions, i.e. the elections in Karnataka. The elections have bought out the usual panoply of opinion polls, perception surveys, and various data analytics, seeking to describe the mood of the people. And as always, there is a wide spectrum of results to choose from. As you read this column, you would have come to know which of these many efforts were on the target, and how many had missed the bus.

The use of opinion polls is not limited to time-bound self-verifying exercises