Regensburg 2007 – scientific programme
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AKSOE: Arbeitskreis Physik sozio-ökonomischer Systeme
AKSOE 4: Poster Session (posters are expected to be displayed the full day (9:00-18:00)
AKSOE 4.11: Poster
Monday, March 26, 2007, 16:30–18:00, Poster D
Analysis of opinion polls in Germany — •Christian Hirtreiter1 and Johannes Josef Schneider2 — 1Institute of Organic Chemistry, University of Regensburg, Universitätsstr. 31, 93053 Regensburg, Germany — 2Institute of Physics, Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz, Staudinger Weg 7, 55099 Mainz, Germany
The influence of opinion polls has grown remarkably over the last few decades, both for daily life and for politics. Public opinion polls in Germany (so-called Sonntagsfrage: for which party would you vote if there was an election next Sunday?) are used as the main indicator for outcomes in real elections and for the acceptability of individual politicians and political parties. Although it is widely assumed that public opinion polls could reproduce election results, it turns out that the outcomes of weekly voter polls are not too reliable, due to some drawbacks in the poll system. We investigate the results of opinion polls by means of time series analysis and focus on the correlation between election and opinion poll results.