Election Polls in The News: What Is at Stakes, What Is New, and What Is Commendable Good Practice?

Fighting Disinformation, ELTE/Lakmusz

Gábor Tóka did a presentation titled “Election Polls in The News: What Is at Stakes, What Is New, and What Is Commendable Good Practice?” at the conference Fighting Disinformation, organized by the ELTE Department of Media and Communication together with the Hungarian fact-checking portal Lakmusz. Researchers and practitioners gathered in Budapest on January 26–27, 2023 at the Central European University to address the content and contours of the disinformation ecosystem, based on empirical research in the field, discuss recent trends, and map the prospective journalistic, academic, and policy-related tracks of inquiry and action.

As part of the panel Data as a Tool for Disinformation, Tóka focused on why and how the information environment during election campaigns can be shaped by low-cost operations, according to three key objectives. The first is to deliver accurate information about likely election outcomes and generate more public trust in the existence and knowability of a common frame of reference in something called the truth. The second is to make not easily accessible, often privately held information about likely election outcomes far more broadly available and comprehensible, and thus reduce information asymmetries between the broader public and privileged groups of investors, especially on financial and political markets. This, in turn, should reduce shocks that can create malfunctions in economic and political markets with harmful implications for the public good. This first two objectives are goals on their own but also a tool in the pursuit of the third, democratic objective. This consist in enabling the public to generate an election result that is as good a reflection of underlying preferences among citizens as possible.

The talk started with reviewing what effects published elections polls may have and why they raise public concerns, also contemplating the criteria for what makes information about an uncertain future development more or less accurate. It then examined old and new technological, financial, and political obstacles to election polls serving the public good as expected by conventional arguments in favor of press freedom. Finally, various practices developed to deal with these challenges and their effectiveness were considered. The presentation built on anecdotal evidence from the US, Hungary, and Romania, especially Tóka’s personal experience with building poll aggregators and providing services to news media outlets in the last two countries.