Chaim Levinson Criticizes Israeli Public Broadcasting Over Election Poll Reporting
Israeli journalist Chaim Levinson has sharply criticized the public broadcasting corporation's political correspondent, Yaara Shapira, over her reporting on election poll trends. Levinson, speaking on his podcast "Levinson in the Morning," argued that Shapira's presentation of poll data was flawed and misleading to viewers.
Levinson began by addressing his own social media provocation regarding Shapira, stating cynically that his criticism was not born of personal animosity. He then focused on Shapira's report, which suggested a trend of increased voter turnout in the coalition based on polls, explaining shifts in the balance between political blocs. According to Shapira's report, the decline in coalition parties' strength was not necessarily due to votes shifting to the opposition, but rather to an expected rise in voter turnout among opposition supporters, alongside factors like the potential failure of the Hadel and Zelicha parties to pass the electoral threshold.
Levinson attacked the use of the term "voter turnout" in the context of pre-election polls, calling it a conceptual error. He explained that actual turnout percentages are determined on election day, and that the relevant questions for pre-election polls should focus on respondents' certainty about voting and their declared choice. He further questioned the data's source, noting that election law requires raw poll data to be submitted to the Central Elections Committee. Levinson claimed he examined the publicly available data for the corporation's polls, conducted by pollster Dudi Hassed, and could not find the specific questions Shapira's report was based on, such as the one about certainty of voting.
Levinson proposed two possible explanations for the discrepancy. The first, which he dismissed as unlikely, was that the relevant questions were not submitted to the Elections Committee. The second, more plausible explanation he offered, was that the data originated from a poll commissioned by another entity. Levinson suggested that Hassed, who polls for the corporation, might have used data from a poll commissioned by a political party and presented it as part of the public broadcaster's survey without disclosing the original commissioner.
