Colombia’s top electoral authority, the National Electoral Council (CNE), revoked the suspension of a pollster accused of publishing biased polling results.
Following a meeting, the CNE said that the decision to suspend the activities of pollster AtlasIntel and its publications in weekly Semana was taken solely by magistrate Fabiola Marquez, the representative of the ruling Pacto Historico party.
A video from the meeting that was made public by Caracol Radio showed Marquez in a heated dispute over her ruling with the far-right representative in the CNE, magistrate Alvaro Hernan Prada.
The CNE said that Marquez, Prada, and liberal representatives Altus Baquero and Maritza Martinez would form a committee to decide on where or not to suspend AtlastIntel.
The suspension was recommended by a commission of expert statisticians, which seeks to promote accuracy and prevent the inflation of candidates’ popularity through skewed polling.
AtlasIntel CEO Andrei Roman rejected the suspension and stressed his company’s track records abroad and ahead of primaries that were held in March of this year.
If our polls at Atlas Intel weren’t high-quality, robust, and scientifically sound, we wouldn’t have built the track record that has allowed us to be the most accurate polling firm in two consecutive election cycles in the United States, in three cycles in Argentina, and in this year’s primaries in Colombia.
AtlasIntel CEO Andrei Roman
The ban on AtlasIntel comes a week after GAD3, a Spanish pollster, suspended its activities amid fears that a ban on their polls would harm the reputation of the company and its publisher, television network RCN.
Invamer, which does polling for television network Caracol, is also being investigated for failing to uphold industry standards.
The increased scrutiny is part of the implementation of a new electoral law that seeks to guarantee the accuracy of polls that claim to be representative of Colombian society.
The law was adopted unanimously by Congress last year, despite objections by the pollsters that claimed the law infringed on their freedom of speech.
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