Communications specialist Stavros Kontaktsis conducted an experiment a week before the election. Using ChatGPT, he built a model for “polling polls”. That is, enter all available polls into the system and see what result they will give him. Having “launched” with his company the online election campaign of Nikos Christodoulidis, he tested the possibilities of predicting the Cypriot elections: already knowing the result, he “entered” polls “there” into the system and found that he was falling. When he then looked at all the Greek polls, he was surprised to find that the artificial intelligence predictions for the Greek elections showed—at their extremes—a much larger difference between N.D. and SYRIZA (15 points) from what he read. They also showed that SYRIZA is much lower (24%) than its opinion polls. “We all had the same numbers. We just decided to analyze them differently,” he notes.

His analysis was confirmed in conversations with three leading pollsters on the Friday before the election. “All three mentioned to me their concern that they considered SYRIZA to be too low. One of them reported a rate of less than 20%. But he commented that even in 2019, he was not counted enough and he finally climbed into the ballot box. All three attributed this to Tsipras’ anti-vote strategy, resulting in his voters not responding. In other words, they thought there was “contamination” in the sample, so they weighed it, estimating that the real percentage was higher,” explains Mr. Kontaktis.

On Sunday morning, the three pollsters, along with other colleagues, were in the offices of the MRB, which housed those who participated in the cross-channel exit poll, which has been conducted by six companies since 2009. Researchers and sociologists have already started collecting data from polling stations, which were given to them by phone. With this data, the leaders did analyzes and periodically held meetings. “In one of these meetings, a new parameter appeared that impressed all of us and led to an incorrect assessment and reassessment of SYRIZA,” one of the participants admits to “K”. “We saw that every fifth voter decided what to vote for that day. In the past there was political loyalty. However, in recent years, more and more people make decisions in a completely different way and at the last moment. In 2019, this percentage was 10%. Now we see that it has grown to 19%,” he explains.

“This is unprecedented,” they commented to each other. At six o’clock they left the OMB office, each going to the station’s studio where they were supposed to appear. “We understood that the election campaign would cause a political earthquake, but we did not fix the Richter scale,” they commented afterwards. They missed the big crash of SYRIZA. The day after the election, almost all of them spoke openly about the atmosphere of “intimidation and terror” and the role that played in the miscalculations. By Tuesday morning, the news that was being played around was that, out of fear, they had not made their true findings public, but were “teasing” them.

Although all six company executives had very busy schedules, an online meeting was organized at noon on the same day. Through Zoom, they discussed for an hour what had happened in the last 48 hours. According to K, most were annoyed at how their words were being misinterpreted. “It is unthinkable and illogical to accuse us of having a result and not giving it. We thought that SYRIZA bowling caught on with the voters, we didn’t mean that it caught on with us,” they stressed. They tried to explain to other members of the electoral commission of their association (SEDEA) that although they did find big differences between the two parties, they saw in their data an underrepresentation of SYRIZA, but also too many rejections.”In many phone calls, we received people’s anger. What the hell are we in the system that harms our party. Many people told us that they did not answer, and they closed it. At the same time, Tsipras himself claimed that five out of seven of his voters do not respond to polls. Therefore, we thought that many refusals come from there and that we should take this into account. This was our main mistake, ”they admit today.

On election Sunday, exit poll researchers found that 19% of voters made their decision that same day. “In 2019, that percentage was 10%.”

Other issues were also discussed at the meeting on Tuesday. Like ghost companies, without offices and representatives who “made” this election a head-to-head derby with only 30,000 votes separating the two parties. “There were similar companies in 2019. There was allegedly an investigation by the parliament, but it did not lead to anything, ”they commented.

The online meeting concluded with an agreement to end the debate that began on election night. “Our goal should be to remain united in the run-up to June 25th. The day after the election, there should be a more sober assessment of what went wrong,” they concluded.

Delusions

Opinion polls firmly entered the political life of Greece in 1996. Stratos Fanaras, head of Metron Analysis, was hired by the Simitis government to “conduct” a series of opinion polls on behalf of PASOK. The well-known relationship he had with the party led to him being targeted four years later by New Democracy executives ironically renaming his company Tsoukatos Analysis. But he remained cool when polls of defunct companies based in the region spoke of a ND victory, even as their premature celebration began on Election Day afternoon. The day before, he told the prime minister himself that he sees a marginal victory for PASOK with 0.2-1.2 points. He fell. The difference was really one unit.

Four years later, when the polls showed the victory of the New Democracy, it was the turn of the PASOK leaders to spread the word that they… would be overthrown. Scenarios were leaked at the time that expatriates were coming from Australia or that all minorities in Thrace would vote for Papandreou and that young people would also vote for him en masse. At the same time, various gallops are traded, showing the difference in half a unit. The result was 4.8 units.

Twenty years “itch” at a gallop

In 2005, the issue of referendums was first raised in Parliament by its then Vice-President Georgios Surlas. “They turn into mechanisms that generate events,” he said. “Even if you’re not ahead. If you persist, you may be found,” commented an MP to the Committee on Institutions, which was finally set up in February 2008. There, some members of parliament complained about blackmail (for example, Papaioannu from PASOK to pay 9,000 euros, which was considered low in the survey). Kouvelis, at the time SYRIZA, said that some jumps never happen or are done virtually. All the committee did was emphasize the need to strengthen the legal framework.

The following year, 2009, communications specialist Stavros Kontaktsis worked on the New Democracy campaign. “It was obvious that there was a problem and that he would not be re-elected. But there was a group in the party that just didn’t accept it.” He usually remembers a meeting where someone upstairs saw the polls but didn’t throw them in the trash. “This is nonsense.

Everyone at the barbershop this morning was saying they would vote for us again.” Kontaktsis was surprised to see that others agreed.
“This is an indicator of how artificial optimism can be cultivated. It’s a bit like a Facebook timeline that ultimately tells you what you like, or the feeling that a party, because it’s active on Twitter, also expresses society. This is a trap that SYRIZA has fallen into, to some extent seducing sociologists as well,” he concludes.

Even the exit poll failed.

Comparison of the average gallop gallop price (final measurements of eight companies – ERT, Friday 19/5) and
the average value of the exit poll with the result of the elections.