Vote Compass in British Columbia: insights from and about published polls

ABSTRACT

Published polls in the 2013 British Columbia provincial election conspicuously failed. This paper uses the Vote Compass Voter Advice Applications to shed light on the prediction failure. At the same time, it considers whether the dynamics of expressed vote intention in the Compass can be deployed as a rolling cross-section – in particular, whether the dynamics of participant self-selection are driven by temporally differentiated bias. Analysis will include selection effects within the Compass, as participants choose whether or not to proceed beyond the “voter advice” component to the political perception and intention batteries.