It has been a constant struggle throughout the election campaign to identify people’s voting intentions in the weekly iSurvey commissioned by The Malta Independent to Business Leaders.
Week after week, the number of people still ‘undecided’ on how to vote has continued to surge with each survey carried out.
The final iSurvey in this campaign gives a staggering 16.2% of ‘undecided’ voters combined with those who refused to divulge their intentions. This is one of the highest ever seen in the iSurveys, which have been conducted for this newspaper since 2014.
The reasons why people are still refusing to respond on who they intend to vote for next Saturday, 3 June, may vary from fear of being associated with a political party to those who are genuinely undecided, given the tense electoral campaign, with so many accusations of corruption and bad governance flying from one side of the political divide to the other.
The iSurvey still gives a clear victory to the Labour Party; however, the editorial team is not satisfied that the findings of the survey reflect the true sentiment of the people responding, due to a heavy skew towards the PL in the survey. This skew is identified when comparing how people said they voted in 2013 to the actual election result. While weighting of a survey to remove the skew is possible, such an exercise isn’t scientifically reliable when the data is heavily skewed. For this reason, we have decided to report that the PL is still ahead, but we cannot guarantee that this reflects the ultimate election result.
Interestingly, a clearer result emerges in the trust rating of the two main political leaders, with 2013 voting patterns found to be very close to the actual 2013 result in this case. The trust rating of the party leaders is explained in another story; however, when cross-referencing the trust rating data with that of those who are still undecided, Nationalist Party leader Simon Busuttil emerges as the one who is most trusted. This information is relevant in this crucial final week of campaigning because those who are still undecided will be calling the election result.
Among those who are still undecided on how to vote, the iSurvey finds that 10.5% trust Simon Busuttil while 7% trust Joseph Muscat.
What is also significant among those who are still undecided is how they voted during the 2013 election. This gives an indication of how they intend to vote next Saturday, should they choose to retain the same voting pattern.
When combining the ‘undecided’ and those who refused to answer, 11.6% voted PL in 2013 while a staggering 21.2% voted PN. Thirty-five per cent of those who voted AD are claiming to be still undecided this time round.
The highest number of ‘undecided’ hails from the northern area of the country, at 28.4%, followed by the eastern coast at 21.5%. These figures drop by almost half in the west and south where the undecided tally to 12.8% and 11.1% respectively.
Women seem to be less decided than men on how they intend to vote, at 16.5%, while men stand undecided at 12.3%. The age group with the highest percentage of undecided voters is strangely the new voters section at 32.8%. This figure is inconsistent with the nature of young people who tend to show off their political preferences more than other age groups; however, the growing lack of trust in politicians’ credibility may be the reason behind this phenomenon.
They are followed by the 35-44 age bracket, at 20%, while the 25-34 cohort stands undecided at 16.7%. Those aged 45-54 and 55-64 stand undecided at 6.6% and 13.5% respectively. Those over 65 years are the least likely to be undecided at 4.5%.