Political Surveys. Telephone electoral surveys and voting opinions

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Who will be elected in the next elections? What is the real perception that people have of a candidate or political party? During 2015, the electoral calendar in Spain had municipal elections scheduled in all the Autonomous Communities as well as presidential elections at the end of the year.

Cosmos Call Center had an intense year of work developing electoral student database opinion polls in the communities of Andalusia, Madrid, Valencia and Catalonia, with the aim of knowing the public opinion regarding this event.

In general terms, the surveys in the different projects or assignments sought the following objectives :

Identify the main problems or concerns of the population.
Assessment of municipal services.
Assessment of current politicians, candidates and political parties
Favorite political party that I would never vote for
Who did you vote for in the last elections and who will you vote for in the next ones.
Questionnaire and population sample for political surveys
In accordance with these general objectives, a questionnaire is prepared that consists of both open and closed questions, in a number of between 10 and 25 questions.

A sample of the target population to be surveyed is then defined. Given the impossibility of accessing the entire population due to lack of time and resources, a representative sample is determined to ensure an adequate size that allows us to generalize the information obtained to the rest of the population they represent.

The determination of the sample size and its characteristics is carried out by minimizing errors using statistical formulas.

To do this, we establish a representative sample of the population based on different variables of interest to our clients. Relying on our extensive database , we carry out surveys based on their suitability for the following characteristics:

Sex: The number of women and men to be surveyed is defined
Age: Age ranges between 18 and 65 years
Population
Marital status Level of education
Employment status
Surveys can be conducted in different ways: by telephone, CATI, online or in person . All surveys are presented in a detailed report and recorded in our telephone system for later verification.

Specific training for call center agents
In addition to controlling possible sampling errors by adjusting the sample size to the variables mentioned above, Cosmos trains its agents to control possible errors generated by the interviewer that could bias the data collected. To do this, it has a training department responsible for training the agents who carry out the surveys by telephone, to transmit the questionnaire to them, to train them on possible questions from the interviewee without offering information that could direct their answers or any type of confusion or error generated by the interviewer.

The teams are also supervised by team leaders and supervisors in order to correct any errors that may occur during the process and prevent them from affecting the interpretation of the data.