Dear Editor,
Vishnu Bisram, not M Maxwell, publicly puts himself out there as a reputable and skilled pollster. Mr Bisram sends selected portions of his findings to the public newspapers, clearly intending for the world to read his selective poll findings. He cannot be serious when he demands that the critics of his voluntarily produced information for public consumption dealing with the opinions of the public “spend their time and money to poll non-voters.” If you are conducting national polls on topical and contentious issues such as political choices, you are automatically part of the debate and a target for criticism. It is Mr Bisram’s choice to conduct polls and once he delivers his findings to the public, he has agreed to face the criticisms produced by that very same public. It is foolish and nonsensical to argue that those critics must conduct their own polls when there is no need to do so, as Mr Bisram’s own findings raise glaring errors and burning questions and the criticisms are based on these findings without the need for separate polls. Should the 22.43% who did not vote for any political party in 2006 or the 19% in 2011 form their own political party before they condemn the PPP, PNC/APNU or AFC? Is this the response from a man who professes his incredible intellectual, scholastic and academic achievements in virtually every letter to the newspapers?
The issue of Mr Bisram missing the turnout in both 2006 and 2011 does not require a separate poll conducted by Maxwell or Stabroek News, or anyone for that matter. The issue is staring us in the face directly from Mr Bisram’s own reported poll findings in 2006 and 2011. In 2006, voter turnout was 69.29%. In the previous election in 2001, it was 91.72%. A whopping 22.43% of the electorate vanished in 2006 compared to 2001. Somehow, Mr Bisram, who claimed he conducted polls several times in 2006 in the pre-election intensity, completely missed this phenomenon. His arguments in his response to this omission are laughable.
Mr Bisram argues that he did not have the funds to determine why 22.43% of Guyanese did not vote in 2006. Yet, he admits he knew of several reasons why voters disappeared massively in 2006. But that is not the point. The issue is not why. It is the ‘what’. Determining why some people did not vote is very different from knowing that people will not vote. If one is conducting a proper survey and doing so several times in the months leading up to an election, one will know that a significant percentage of the electorate will not vote. One may not know why but one will know what will happen. It is highly unlikely a proper pollster will completely miss the impending disappearance of 22.43% of the voting public from electoral participation. Unless one is fabricating polls or concocting findings, it is impossible to miss this phenomenon and even more incredonle to miss it twice. Further, Mr Bisram claims the polls were based on ethnicity so he should have known from this funnel-down technique which ethnic groups were not going to vote.
To understand the scale of Bisram’s ineptitude on this issue, there were 440,185 registered voters in 2001 versus 492,369 registered voters in 2006. Using the 91.72% baseline in 2001 for voter turnout, it would mean that 451,601 voters should have turned out in 2006. Only 338,839 voted, meaning 112,762 voters who were expected to show up based on past voter turnout did not vote. Mr Bisram states, “In my personal interviews, and in my debriefings of interviewers, I gathered that several individuals indicated they would not vote, but not as many as 20%. They were not included in the poll findings.” How could any pollster asserting reputability deliberately remove an important group of non-voters from a poll findings? Isn’t that unequivocally going to skew and manipulate the findings? Again in 2011, Bisram repeated the same egregious error in missing the massive non-turnout.
The icing on the statistical cake was in the Guyana Chronicle’s November 27, 2011 article titled “Latest NACTA poll predicts landslide win for the PPP/C”. It was consummate garbage, which is why the decent newspapers, Stabroek News and Kaieteur News refused to publish its findings. That article stated that Mr Bisram found there would be a 98% turnout! Yes, you read that right – 98%. Mr Bisram somehow produced the alchemy of a 6% margin of error with a 98% turnout. This was beyond selective statistical subterfuge and agenda objectification, this was a Baghdad Bob kind of deluded charlatanism.
Finally, if Mr Bisram wants his critics to conduct their own polls in response to his, he should allow them the opportunity to do so using his sample, interviewees, methodology, system, process and questionnaire as this allows for the best manner to test their validity by comparing like versus like or apples to apples. Mr Bisram should provide all of this information to Stabroek News and the critics can go from there. After all, the issue is not about Dick Morris’ failed and pathetic poll, which any rational Guyanese knew was bogus. Nor is it about who spends their own money on these polls. It is about the integrity of information that is publicly implanted and has strong public value and potential to confuse and sway a populace with significant sections that are misinformed and uneducated in many spheres.
Mr Bisram has written several times on a return to the Independence constitution. Where is his poll finding to back his contention? Stabroek News is encouraging Bisram’s statistical manipulation when it publishes his letter with his selective findings. Not once have I read his breakdown of ethnic, regional and class support on various issues when he clearly polls on these sub-groups. Mr Bisram refuses to see what is there in front of him and tells us that it is not there.
Yours faithfully,
M Maxwell
