Now the Australians are questioning why they got the polls so wrong.

First it was a big swing and miss with Brexit vote in the UK.

Then a MASSIVE whiff at the plate when Donald beat Hillary's arse in 2016.

And the polls continue to get it wrong. This time in Australia.

LINK

quote:

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So why exactly were the polls, as ABC political editor Andrew Probyn put it last night, such a "shambles"?

Former Newspoll boss Martin O'Shannessy blamed the flawed forecasting on the fact that many people's telephone habits have changed.

"Not everybody has a landline and the numbers that are published are incomplete."

Mr O'Shannessy said until he left Newspoll in 2015, the company had used probability sampling — where a random sample of telephone numbers are called across the country to reflect the population.

"It was successful because it allowed every potential voter to have a say in the poll," he said.

ABC election analyst Antony Green agreed the sampling used to be much more reliable.

"They switched from an operator asking questions to randomly calling mobile numbers and robocalls," he said.

"There has been a drop off in response rates and there has also been a drop off in the quality of the data."

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IMO this explanation is laughable.

The real reason is the polls failed to gaslight the people. If the polls don't do a good job of manipulating at least 10% of the electorate by triggering the "herding effect" the polls will be wrong.

When the polls cross tabs can be easily read online the electorate is more difficult to gas light. If the cross tabs are not provided the electorate simply dismisses the poll.

Pollsters will continue to try to herd voters to a predetermined and paid for outcome. The old gas lighting polling methods appear to be failing. It will be interesting to see how the bought and paid for gas lighting polling firms change strategies.