press release [imas]

poll results versus registered voting results - Presidential elections, first round, November 1, 2020

The presidential elections (first round) were held on November 1, 2020, and, according to the Central Electoral Commission, 1,348,719 citizens, including 1,199,541 from the territory of the Republic of Moldova (88.94% of the total voters) and 149,178 from the diaspora (11.06% of the total voters) came to to the elections. All polls were conducted only on the territory of the Republic of Moldova; therefore, for a correct assessment of the ability to estimate voting behavior, the comparison should be made between the ratings provided by the polls and the result registered by each candidate on the territory of the Republic of Moldova. 

To facilitate this comparison process, voting intentions were calculated from the total of those who mentioned that they had a voting option in each poll, thus accepting the hypothesis of a proportional distribution of the “undecided”. Please carefully go through the notes mentioned after the table below, as well. The results of the polls are presented in chronological order, from the nearest poll to the date of the election to the furthest from the date on which the elections were held.

1 The survey was not public and is presented in this material by courtesy of the beneficiary of this poll. 

2 The survey was not public and is presented in this material by courtesy of the beneficiary of this poll.

3. The FOP survey was conducted using two data collection methods: face-to-face and telephone poll.

4 The difference up to 100% is the answer “other candidate” - 1.3%. 

5 The difference up to 100% is the answer “other candidate” - 1.7%.

6 The poll was not public in nature, but was presented by a media source who stated that they had obtained this survey exclusively. Results can be accessed here. 

7 It was the only poll conducted by telephone (the rest of the polls were conducted face to face), with a response rate of 7%. The percentages accumulated in the poll under the category “other candidate” and “undecided " were redistributed according to the model explained above. The results of the survey can be found here.  

Note: CBS Research polls for IPP (BOP) - 08.10-20.10 and for Watch Dog - 10.10-17.10 were excluded from the analysis because they showed a record number of undecided - 36% and 58% respectively, although, as it can be seen, both polls were conducted in similar periods. However, they presented a number of undecided two to four times higher than those presented by the other companies. For these reasons, we consider that these two polls cannot be compared with ones in which the number of undecided people was between 12% and 26%, depending on when the data were collected.

Unfortunately, we are again forced to highlight the serious phenomena that are present in the sociological research market in the Republic of Moldova; here are some of them:

• publication of the polls that prove to be far from reality, differences that far exceed the margins of error assumed by each poll; 
• presence of polls that publish even other order of ranking on voting intentions;
• publication of polls conducted on a volume of 23 respondents, polls that were taken over by the media without any verification or additional analysis; 
• polls broadcast regardless of the previous performance of the companies that publish them; 
• publication of polls in which the number of undecided respondents reached 64% during the election period; 
• organization of two” exit-polls " on the phone, although not even the correct terminology was used by the organizers (exit-poll = poll at the exit from the polling station), polls that proved to be at a considerable distance from the recorded results and had technical and methodological problems; 
• organization by a sociological research company of a contest with prizes depending on the accuracy with which the participants of the contest can guess the outcome of the elections; 
• online polls, devoid of any rigor taken over by media sources; 

Certainly, there is always room for improvement and we are aware of this. The company [imas] will continue doing its work with the same passion and honesty. I would like to thank the entire team [imas], from drivers, operators, verifiers to the colleagues in the headquarters in Chisinau; the day of the vote proved once again that the passion and honesty of our work are our success formula. I bring even greater thanks to the citizens who participate in our surveys, for the patience and time they invest in taking part in opinion polls.

with friendship, 

Doru PETRUTI

General Manager [imas]