The polling firms hired by Colombia’s corporate media ahead of the elections are struggling to comply with stricter polling regulations that took force last year.
A commission of experts that monitors compliance with the law, reportedly recommended the National Electoral Council (CNE) to suspend the license of the AtlasIntel, which has been conducting polls for weekly Semana, and newspapers El Colombiano and El Pais.
According to Caracol Radio, the Brazilian pollster violates the quality controls “seriously and systematically.”
AtlasIntel polls limit themselves to online polling, ignoring potential voters with no or limited access to the internet.
“Any population estimate derived from data collected under this scheme is necessarily model-dependent and relies on unobservable and empirically unverifiable assumptions about selection and participation processes,” the expert commission reportedly told the CNE.
The commission recommended the “provisional suspension” of the pollster’s license “to prevent the continuation of conduct incompatible with the current regulatory framework and to protect the integrity of the system for monitoring and overseeing election polls.”
The recommendation comes a week after GAD3, which conducts polls for Corporate news network RCN, said that it would suspend its polling efforts in Colombia.
According to the Spanish pollster, the quality controls “make it impossible to conduct social research with even the minimum guarantees of rigor and operational feasibility.”
“GAD3 would rather suspend this activity than jeopardize the reputation of the National Electoral Council, our client RCN, and the firm’s international standing,” the pollster said in a public statement.
Congress unanimously agreed to impose stricter regulations on polls last year after complaints about their bias and lack of professional standards.
The law has been criticized by pollsters, who have accused the regulations of stifling democracy.
Statisticians, on the other hand, have expressed their approval of the new bill, which forces pollsters to increase their accuracy when it comes to claims that the polls represent Colombian society.
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