Ex-MP lauds Nation Poll for its accuracy in opinion collection
Former MP and well-known academic Prof Kriengsak Chareonwongsak commended Nation Poll for employing the “door-to-door” methodology in collecting voters’ opinions on the May 14 general election.
The Nation Group gathered opinions from 39,687 voters in eight regional zones and Bangkok’s 33 constituencies in the second week of April. The survey covered such topics as preferred political party, preferred PM candidates as well as constituency and party-list MP candidates.
“I never trust opinion surveys conducted via telephones, as pollsters often use data collected from other polls to save costs. This results in sample groups that are not wide and diversified enough,” Kriengsak said on Friday.
The professor is president of the Nation-Building Institute, lecturer at several universities and a former Democrat MP.
He said that to get actual opinions, pollsters need to reach respondents at their doorstep and ensure the sampling is truly random, diverse and scattered throughout the target area.
“It’s good that Nation Poll chose this method for data collection because despite being more expensive and time-consuming, it guarantees better accuracy with an acceptable deviation of 3-5%,” he said.
Kriengsak added that face-to-face questioning has the additional benefit of surveyors explaining the question to respondents and getting a clearer response.
The Nation Poll has also highlighted the fact that about a fourth of the respondents are still undecided on who to vote for on May 14. This, Kriengsak said, was a “key finding and parties must target this group to try and persuade them with clearer, more prominent policies”.
The Nation Group is cooperating with top university academics and experts, non-governmental organisations and the private sector to hold two comprehensive surveys under the “Road to the Future: Election 2023 Thailand’s Future” theme.
The first round was conducted from April 7 to 12 and the second round will be held in the last week of April.
