Letter: Poll discrepancies

I HAVE been suspicious for some time about the wild differences being reported for the Holyrood elections.

Looking further into this, I have found that there are two figures, which are merged to produce the so-called final result. The first figure is what comes from the number of voters questioned, the "unweighted figures". These are then adjusted by the "weighted figures". The latter amazingly, are based on identifications made for the Westminster election, an entirely different poll, for a different parliament, at a different time.

To give you an idea on how much this system distorts the outcome, let us look as an example at the YouGov poll held on 21-22 February, 2011. In the "Constituency Vote", the unweighted figures showed that 41 per cent said that they would vote for the SNP, against 28 per cent for Labour.

When this figure was adjusted using the weighted figures, (those produced in the Press), it showed a completely opposite picture, with Labour having 41 per cent and the SNP 32 per cent. The Tories and the Lib Dems also suffered, but only marginally. The regional list votes were even more distorted.

JOHN S JAPPY

Muir of Ord

Ross-shire