A soldier sleeps, but the service goes on. Or, in our current reality: “Navalny is under arrest, and we keep working.” Here’s an update on our sociology project. Nearly 400 people signed up to volunteer for the project, and 37 of them took part in the first survey (on the ratings of candidates for mayor of Novosibirsk). H***ow it worked To begin with, there wasn’t a single volunteer who couldn’t get the hang of it or spent the whole day unable to make it work. Some learned faster, some slower, but everyone learned. (hooray) The workday was structured like this: training, going over the questionnaire, getting familiar with the system, and trial (test) calls. Calling started at 10 a.m. After the first hour, all the volunteers were conducting interviews confidently, cheerfully persuading respondents to agree to the survey, and generally performing like real pros. Since the system dials a randomly generated number on its own, the volunteer has very little to do: a couple of clicks — and then you sit there reading Twitter until you hear the long-awaited “Hello?”.
We upgraded some of the workstations with actual telephones. Literally: pick up the receiver and call us right now wait for “Hello?”.
So, to sum up: telephone surveying is something absolutely anyone can handle. The costs are minimal, and the results are excellent.
Volunteers choose their own preferred working hours: the first half of the day, the second half, or the whole day. We deliberately ran two identical projects in Novosibirsk — one using professional interviewers and one using volunteers — to see whether there were any differences in response rate (agreement to be interviewed) or response bias. We’re proud to report that the volunteers performed no worse than the professional interviewers (we always knew that).
And now, (drumroll) a bit about the results of the Novosibirsk survey. The data presented below were obtained through a telephone survey of 1,000 Novosibirsk residents aged 18 and older, using a random sample of landline and mobile phone numbers. The margin of error does not exceed 3.8%. Novosibirsk mayoral election We measured how aware residents were of the upcoming election. The data are presented as percentages of respondents.
Turnout It is obviously overstated. In this case, we are not forecasting turnout; we are publishing the survey results. As practice shows, people often exaggerate the importance of elections within their personal value system.
Electoral choice The question about electoral choice was asked only to those who said they were prepared to take part in the election. If a candidate was running on behalf of a party, the candidate’s name was read out together with the party affiliation. The list of candidates and their party affiliations was current at the time the survey was conducted (February 8–13).
Only the ratings of the top three candidates rise above the margin of error:
Andrei Ksenzov The ratings of the other candidates are listed in the table, but those figures cannot really be considered reliable, since all of them fall below the survey’s margin of error. 4. Party ratings Naturally, we were also interested in party ratings. It is worth noting that the question about party choice was asked in “peacetime” — the distribution of responses during an election campaign would be significantly different. The data are presented as percentages of respondents.
The party of crooks and thieves Our favorite question about you-know-which party. The data are given as percentages of respondents.
As we can see, United Russia’s ratings are fairly high. In fact, surprisingly high for opposition-minded Novosibirsk, where in the actual 2011 elections United Russia received well under 30%.
This once again confirms the familiar assumption that during elections, when there is political competition and campaigning by other parties, United Russia’s rating declines, while between elections, when “there is no politics,” it readjusts.
All of this is extremely important data both for Novosibirsk residents and for political forces that have not yet decided which candidate to support.
And for the candidates themselves as well: 60% undecided suggests that those who step up their campaigns will be rewarded with voters’ support.
In our view, the results also show that a*** united opposition candidate (if one emerges) has every chance of defeating the United Russia candidate in the first round.***
Ou***r next plans
***Starting Sunday, we will be conducting a new large-scale telephone survey on Ukraine. Quite literally: what do Russians actually think about it, and how has it affected Putin’s approval rating?
Obviously, we can’t do it without your help. So there’s no time to explain — sign up here: http://team.fbk.info/#form/sociology
This will be our first survey covering all of Russia. It should be interesting: different time zones, different public moods, a vast country indeed.
For this, we have built call center version 2.0:
waiting time for a call has been reduced to a minimum — no more waiting 1 to 4 minutes for a successful connection,
more respondents, more questionnaires, and overall — faster, higher, stronger.
So pick up the receiver and call us right now sign up here as soon as possible: http://team.fbk.info/#form/sociology (spaces are limited).
Acknowledgments Many thanks to Konstantin, Nikolai, Irina, Olga, Anton, Anna, Natalia, Tatyana, Maria, Olga, Pavel, Anton, Olga, Oksana, Anton, Denis, Nikita, Diana, Konstantin, Liza, Olga, Pavel, Polina, Olesya, Sergei, Elena, Sergei, Roman, Irina, Ksenia, Tatyana, Vyacheslav, Larisa, Olga, Irina, Gennady, Vladislav — you are all amazing and true “collective Navalnys.”