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Polls Apart? What Brexit Taught Us About Predicting Vote Results

© REUTERS / Dylan MartinezDemonstrators take part in a protest aimed at showing London's solidarity with the European Union following the recent EU referendum, in Trafalgar Square, central London, Britain June 28, 2016.
Demonstrators take part in a protest aimed at showing London's solidarity with the European Union following the recent EU referendum, in Trafalgar Square, central London, Britain June 28, 2016. - Sputnik International
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We all would love to know the outcome of something before it happens, this may be why the Brits enjoy polls. But how accurate are they?

Online polls

The online polls conducted in the lead up to the referendum predicted correctly that Britain would Brexit from the EU. The online polls highlighted that the race between the Remain and Leave camps was very close; however, Leave had the slight advantage.

Three days before the vote, a poll by YouGov showed that the Leave camp had a two point lead. However polls have not always been correct.

Shortly before the last General Election, it was predicted that the Labour Party would be the winners or there would be another coalition. That didn't happen and the Conservative party won with a big majority.

Betting Markets Know Nothing 

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It wasn't just opinion polls trying to predict the outcome of the referendum.

The betting markets also attempted to look in and news websites included live tracking of betting odds.

Throughout the campaign the betting markets showed huge confidence in a Remain victory and odds on Brexit were often as long as 5:1, including on the day of the vote when at one point they hit 16:1.

Online Polling More Accurate

Telephone polls showed that Remain were comfortably ahead, sometimes by as much as 18 points. However, the online polls showed that the Leave side was in front. It can therefore be argued that the results from telephone polls are subject to more problems and can be skewed.

​The Remain camp hired a former City trader to assess whether online polls were more reliable than phone polls. The results came back that online polling was wrong and there analysis was even featured on Newsnight.

Polling Works

Analysts have argued that the Remain team may have been misled by this information and led to feel safe that Britain would vote to stay in the EU. If they had known perhaps that their position was not as secure, maybe they would have changed their campaign? 

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