Are less rigorous polls less reliable?

Bill C-83 proposes to regulate the publication of polls and their methodolo gy during electoral campaigns. It would be necessary to determine the type of pertinent methodological information in order to judge the quality of th e poll. This article presents results of a study on the relation between me thodology used in polls published in Quebec during the May/June 1997 federa l electoral campaign and the quality of the estimates of voter intentions. Analysis verifies that, when the methodology used was less rigorous, the sp read between the polls and the true voter intentions was larger and less st able even when taking account of errors due to sample size. These results u nderline the necessity to enforce requirements about the publication of the methodology of the surveys reported during electoral campaigns and of revi sing Bill C-83 accordingly.