Reader’s letter: Ban opinion polls near election day
Translated from Swedish and summarized by DistantNews. Read the original for the full story.
At a glance
Opinion
Named sources
Context piece
- Bertil Jenning argues in a Dagens Nyheter reader’s letter that opinion polls should be banned from two weeks to one month before elections.
- He says media and politicians turn elections into entertainment and that polls focus attention on small shifts rather than the wider electorate.
- Jenning argues that polls influence election results and leave voters too little peace to consider how to vote.
Opinion polls may be entertaining, exciting and commercially successful news, but they concern the country’s future, argues Bertil Jenning in a reader’s letter published by Dagens Nyheter.
He proposes banning polls during the period from two weeks to one month before an election, or at least before early voting begins. In his view, media outlets and politicians have turned elections into a spectacle and should give voters more peace to think about their choices.
Fun, exciting and sellable news, but this is a parliamentary election, not a reality show.
Jenning says coverage now focuses on the two or three percent of voters whose preferences might shift, rather than on the rest of the electorate. He argues that this gives polls an enormous influence in the media and pushes democratic elections toward close contests.
“Fun, exciting and sellable news,” he writes, but a parliamentary election is not a reality show. Swedish voters are choosing their future, and Jenning says opinion polls help drive the result.
Swedish people are voting for their future.
About this summary
Originally published by Dagens Nyheter in Swedish. Translated, summarized, and contextualized automatically by DistantNews, with a note on how the source frames the story. Not individually reviewed before publishing. How this works.
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