These days, it is very common for conversations to revolve around presidential candidates who have a real chance of making it to the second round; In this context, it is possible to argue that it is very likely that the candidate correísmo has the possibility to reach the second round, maintaining uncertainty as to who will be the other candidate who can reach that electoral round, apart from the fact that it should be up to Three candidates will fight for that option.

The note that the candidate Luisa González would secure passage to the second round is based on the assumption of a strong correísmo vote, historically at 20-25% of the electorate, which would be enough to reach the second round. election round; As for the other candidate who would run against her in that second round, we may not know his name until the results are announced, which reveals the uncertainty of this unique election as a result of the death of the cross. Perhaps a few years ago, this uncertainty would have been marginal considering the pollster’s measurements, which made it possible to predict the election result in a safe and orderly way; However, polls have progressively lost all their credibility, becoming caricatures of political science studies, now that it is increasingly common to observe their flaws and distortions, suggest wrong projections and justify their mistakes without support or criteria, which could be demonstrated in the February 2023 election process.

The election campaign for the presidential binomial will be moved more than a month in advance

However, it should be noted that the failure of polls in recent times is not an exclusive phenomenon that occurs in our country, but is repeated in almost all democracies based on the free right to vote. One of the most common criteria used to explain errors in research is the fact that the traditional technical measurement base has serious problems “when it is necessary to capture very rapid trend changes with all their intensity”. This is also mentioned by Juan Cuvi, who claims that surveys “do not have the capacity to measure the speed of electronic communication.” That is, they fail to detect the dynamics of some messages that can influence collective decisions in less than 20 seconds”. Others, on the other hand, claim that it is an increasingly common phenomenon that respondents hide their electoral options, that is, people who do not want to say who they will vote for for a number of reasons, among which, interestingly, is boredom with the experience of democracy, a tangible fact in the Ecuadorian case.

Finally, we must also mention the difficulties that polls have in analyzing the challenge of voting by undecideds, citizens who have no idea who to vote for, since they do not feel represented by any candidate. As one analyst put it, “it’s not that they’re lying; it’s that they really don’t know who to vote for.” In other words, we will need crystal balls more than research. (OR)