The electoral period is a good two years away still, but the political movements on the ground have started to gain traction. Without mentioning party affiliations, the electoral undercurrents are strongly reflected in the rise of numerous obscure survey firms which, like most vloggers, are connected to paid partisan agenda.

Aside from Social Weather Station (SWS) and Pulse Asia, new players like PUBLiCUS Asia Inc. and Oculum Research and Analytics Philippines have become visible with their press releases highlighting so-so bets making it to winning circle if the elections were held today.

In short, the season for surveys, like mushrooms that flourish after the heavy downpour, has opened, and with enough political fundings already flowing through the pipelines, expect more of them to sprout with predictable outcomes that flood the media landscape.

The influence surveys carry in our political life is magnified by the fact that they are broadcast in media or published in print outlets. Even if the measurements used in the polls are specious, the voting population has no way of knowing which survey is credible or accurate. Results, as they are presented, can be taken with a grain of salt though. And for those who do not know how surveys are done, any outcome, if properly explained, can always create an impression.

Surveys are not just about individuals who are leading the imaginary electoral race; they are also about swaying public effect. If a candidate is by now considered a front-runner in the popular insight, his stock grows even more because his popularity is confirmed by the survey results. Although poll results are not conclusive, the direction it affords electorate is significant in that it helps them shape their decision long before the ballots have been counted.

Of course, surveys are not free. For a party or individual to commission one, he or she must have the financial wherewithal to hire an agency, and with it the suggestions on how questions are framed so as to get the desired results. Impugning poll results may be deemed as an appropriate gambit but such move is often overlooked if the pollster is already a recognized entity.

Survey results are at times dependent on the modes being used in balloting public opinion, such as face-to-face surveys, telephone surveys, self-administered paper and pencil surveys, and self-administered computer surveys done online. But the most substantial aspect of polling is the kind of methodology that is being adopted.

In general, surveys conducted by credible agencies should be viewed as a good political measurement. Given their capacity to introduce more advanced approaches in the selection of samples and the strategies in appreciating the data, almost always they are the preferred pollsters.

Understanding how surveys work is an interesting study towards appreciating how voters behave when confronted with questions. Even if a survey sample has a final choice, his response is predictable because he has already picked out someone he chooses as his preference.

Polls can be deceiving also because they do not at times embrace or include all the personalities the public at large think as winnable. The happens in an impromptu survey when a sample is simply asked who is his or her choice for president, vice president, or senator.

Surveys, for the bigger part, are indicators and their results serving as guideposts for people on who to support if an election were held today. In general, it also affords us an appreciation on different profiles who have caught public adulation and the positions they are associated as reflected in the survey.

Polling public opinion is not entirely perfect but it gives us a better than usual tool that measures the standing of known personalities when it comes to electoral popularity. Never believe that all surveys are rigged because they are not. But always believe that the questions framed in the conduct of polls are, consciously or otherwise, prepared to suit specific targets. (AVF)