Polity: The impact of Labour’s GOTV efforts

• notices and features
• 10 years ago
• Categories: blogs, dpf
• Tags: david farrar, kiwiblog, mischief, polity, turnout, voters

David Farrar often bullshits on numbers as he usually does. Does he have what appears to be a maths block that makes him so wrong so often  (like his old boss Bill English)? Or is it just that he obeys orders like the good National puppet tools that he and Cameron Slater appear to be? Anyway, Rob Salmond pulls him up on a few obvious and significiant flaws in his ‘analysis’. DPF didn’t allow for people lying – just like he does.

David Farrar is busy this morning resurrecting blog discussions from last November about whether getting more people to show up and vote will make any difference in this year’s election. He cites some evidence from Grumpollie suggesting it would not, which argued that if absolutely everyone with a preference cast a ballot, the 2011 results would have looked much the same as they did anyway.

Farrar concludes with:

So my take on this is that just inspiring a larger turnout won’t necessarily help Labour.

Here is why I think they are both wrong:

1. 25.8% of people did not vote in the last election, but only 8.2% of the population admitted it in the survey Grumpollie was using. That’s a very big discrepancy.
2. There is a long-standing tradition to lying to pollsters about whether you voted. It is based on “social desirability bias.” And the people most susceptible to it, people who often do vote and are embarrassed that they did not in 2011, are also in my view among the most likely to have voted for Labour in 2008.
3. The analysis, and David Farrar’s conclusion, is based on the idea that Labour will go hunting for non voters randomly around the country, convincing non-voters in the bluest parts of Clutha-Southland to vote just as much as we do in Labour stronghold areas. We are a bit smarter than that.

This year, I expect Labour will put considerable effort into turning out people who we think like Labour but we think may not have voted in 2011. And National will do the same for people suspected gf being lapsed National supporters. Two parties: one task. The difference, which gives Labour an advantage, is that we are better at this task than National.