TSE Expands Public Disclosure of Poll Methodology

Overview

• The Tribunal Superior Eleitoral rolled out upgrades to its PesqEle registry on Friday that make standardized methodological fields visible for published polls.
• Polling firms must now report whether they used audio, video or images during interviews and must provide the order and structure of questionnaire items.
• The system also requires detailed sampling and fieldwork data, including the population represented, sampling plan classification, projected and actual sample sizes, confidence level, margin of error, collection window, discards, platforms used and response-rate calculations.
• TSE president Kássio Nunes Marques and a technical working group shaped the changes after hearings with polling institutes following his June suspension of an AtlasIntel survey, but the court has not yet ruled on that suspension because Minister Estela Aranha put the case on extended review.
• The court says the display changes do not create new legal duties for pollsters but are meant to improve external scrutiny, a step that could reduce later disputes and help campaigns, journalists and voters better judge how surveys were conducted.