Public Opinion Poll Futility Raised by Hong Jun-pyo: "Response Rates Below 15% Should Be Prohibited from Publication"

"Polls with Response Rates Below 10% Can Be Manipulated"

President Yoon Suk-yeol's approval rating has dropped to 21%, amid which Hong Joon-pyo, the mayor of Daegu, raised a theory about the uselessness of opinion polls. On the 2nd, Mayor Hong stated on his Facebook, "Polls with a response rate below 15% should be prohibited from being published, and so-called adjustments should not be made," adding, "Opinion polls with a response rate below 10% can be manipulated as much as one wants depending on the design."

Mayor Hong mentioned, "During the 2017 impeachment presidential election, my approval rating was announced as a single-digit figure, 7-8%, until a week before the election," and "Even in the final announcement, it was the only one announced below 10% compared to the number of votes, while candidates Moon Jae-in and Ahn Cheol-soo were announced with approximate figures. That was the announcement from the most reliable polling agency in Korea at the time."

Hong Joon-pyo, Mayor of Daegu. [Photo by Yonhap News]

He claimed, "The reason that particular agency announced it that way was not because it was a normal opinion poll but rather a deliberate manipulation to create a momentum for a specific candidate." He continued, "I saw such tendencies in this general election's opinion polls as well, and I see similar things in recent polls," adding, "The reason I raise the theory of the uselessness of opinion polls stems from such issues." Mayor Hong concluded, "I am reminded again of a polling agency that once proposed to manipulate 10% of the results for 300 million won during the party convention in July 2011."

President Yoon Suk-yeol is delivering a greeting at the 22nd People Power Party National Assembly Members Workshop held on the 30th of last month at the Jaeneung Education Training Center in Cheonan, Chungnam. [Image source=Yonhap News]

Analysis suggests that Mayor Hong's mention of the uselessness of opinion polls is not unrelated to the recent record low approval rating of President Yoon since his inauguration. Earlier, on the 31st of last month, a poll result showed that President Yoon's approval rating had fallen to the low 20% range.

According to a survey conducted by Gallup Korea from the 28th to the 30th of last month targeting 1,001 people nationwide aged 18 and over (with a 95% confidence level and a margin of error of ±3.1 percentage points), President Yoon's positive job performance rating was 21%. This was a 3 percentage point drop from the previous survey (conducted from the 21st to the 23rd of last month), marking the lowest point since the current government took office. The negative rating was 70%, the highest since the government began.

This survey was conducted via telephone interviews by interviewers using randomly extracted virtual mobile phone numbers. The response rate was 11.1%. Detailed information can be found on the Central Election Poll Deliberation Commission website.