Part one of term paper
? Opinion polls play a major role in politics, they can be used by the Government to decide when to call and election, and, among other things, how their pre- election campaigns are run. Throughout the history of opinion polling, from the time when polling began to be widely used before an election, in 1945, until 1987, the last general elec ...

Part two of term paper
... and has always been trusted, both by the public, and political parties. The way polling forecasts can affect the way people vote is very dramatic, this is because they can be a 'self fulfilling prophecy', in that some voters like to back the 'winning team', and others only vote for a party they feel has a real chance. This was demonstrated in 1983, when the Alliance, frustrated with the media concentrating only on their position in the polls, leaked their own private polls to the press, ...