The Malta Independent on Sunday

Highest number of undecided in north and east of Malta

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fear of being associated with a political party to those who are genuinely undecided, given the tense electoral campaign, with so many accusation­s of corruption and bad governance flying from one side of the political divide to the other.

The iSurvey still gives a clear victory to the Labour Party; however, the editorial team is not satisfied that the findings of the survey reflect the true sentiment of the people responding, due to a heavy skew towards the PL in the survey. This skew is identified when comparing how people said they voted in 2013 to the actual election result. While weighting of a survey to remove the skew is possible, such an exercise isn’t scientific­ally reliable when the data is heavily skewed. For this reason, we have decided to report that the PL is still ahead, but we cannot guarantee that this reflects the ultimate election result.

Interestin­gly, a clearer result emerges in the trust rating of the two main political leaders, with 2013 voting patterns found to be very close to the actual 2013 result in this case. The trust rating of the party leaders is explained in another story; however, when cross-referencin­g the trust rating data with that of those who are still undecided, Nationalis­t Party leader Simon Busuttil emerges as the one who is most trusted. This informatio­n is relevant in this crucial final week of campaignin­g because those who are still 12.8% and 11.1% respective­ly.

Women seem to be less decided than men on how they intend to vote, at 16.5%, while men stand undecided at 12.3%. The age group with the highest percentage of undecided voters is strangely the new voters section at 32.8%. This figure is inconsiste­nt with the nature of young people who tend to show off their political preference­s more than other age groups; however, the growing lack of trust in politician­s’ credibilit­y may be the reason behind this phenomenon.

They are followed by the 35-44 age bracket, at 20%, while the 2534 cohort stands undecided at 16.7%. Those aged 45-54 and 5564 stand undecided at 6.6% and 13.5% respective­ly. Those over 65 years are the least likely to be undecided at 4.5%.

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