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How Come The Poll Was So far Out?

Our main eviction Poll (but not just ours) was out again this week, but not in the same way that it was when Marcus survived against Freddie. Rather, it correctly showed that Marcus was likely go and that Siavash would probably survive, but totally underestimated by what margin the Iranian would beat the self-titled 'Irrepressible Dark Horse'.

When it first went live on Tuesday after the nominees were announced, our Poll – which asked 'Who Do You Want Evicted On Friday?' – showed Siavash in the lead, but it quickly steadied-out to read 50/50. As time went on, and the poll received thousands more votes, it went to 51% in favour of punting Marcus, and that's what it read when he was evicted.

However, we looked at the log files on Friday afternoon after the Poll had received around 6000 votes, but only considered the votes registered on that day, just to see what the most recent public opinion was. It was 53% in favour of evicting Marcus, which is why we said that he would likely go with at least 53% in this article.

But Marcus actually got 64% in the public phone vote, 13% more than our Poll said, so it wasn't anywhere near as close as the Poll suggested in the end. This can be explained by taking into account a number of factors:

Firstly, it could have been literally a last-minute swing in public opinion (against Marcus), because he was seen on the highlights show just before the eviction refusing to help the group by cutting-off his ponytail, a move that would have returned £15,000 to the prize fund. That said, it was shown very late in the programme, so it won't have made a huge difference.

It's more likely that the result is a good demonstration of how fans can be prepared to vote on a Poll for free, or are vocal on internet forums in support of a particular contestant, but are not always prepared to put their money where their mouth is.

We say that because Marcus fans and Siavash detractors should have been voting for Siavash in their droves, seeing as they were waxing lyrical about how the former was such a great housemate in discussion forums. But it was all hot air in the end, because Siavash only got 36% of the public vote.

Actually, you could say that the opposite happened, and that Siavash supporters/ Marcus detractors did bother to register their opinion by voting for Marcus in the public vote.

The result could also be put down to the fact that you can't 'multiple-vote' in most internet Polls; you can generally vote just the once. So, it's likely that a decent number of Siavash supporters – who'd voted once in our Poll – each phoned in a good few votes for Marcus in a bid to get him out, but the opposing fans didn't do the same.

Anyway, he's gone now, but it just goes to show that although Polls can be a good indicator of what's going to happen (and ours are mostly very accurate), they can't always convey the extent of the public feeling towards or against a certain housemate.

And if they run over a number of days, internet Polls can't cater very well for sudden changes in public opinion due to events in the House. Neither can they keep-up with fans swapping allegiances because their fave has been evicted at the Finale, which is why Polls often get the positions of the Finalists in the wrong order.

Lesson over!

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