already published results, “exit polls” polls?
THE FREE. Already at the forefront during the first round, La Libre Belgique could well be the first French-speaking media to reveal the name of the next president or the next president of France even before the end of the second round of the presidential election. But beware of the reliability of these first estimates and results given before 8 p.m.!
[Mis à jour le 24 avril 2022 à 15h17] Only a few hours before the 8 p.m. gong, when the first results could be published in France, the first results of the 2022 presidential election are already circulating on the web. As in the first round, the French-speaking media abroad, not subject to the electoral rule which prohibits the French media from broadcasting the results before 8 p.m., have planned to broadcast the results in the afternoon. Shortly before 2 p.m., La Libre Belgique has already released figures corresponding to the results of the overseas departments. Guadeloupe, Martinique or Guyana are concerned. Like all French media, Linternaute.com is not able to give you these results before 8 p.m.
While the French press is required to respect the reserve period on these election days, foreign media, some of which publish in French, do not hesitate to reveal the estimates or figures which inevitably circulate from mid-afternoon in the newsrooms. La Libre Belgique, whose premises are located a few kilometers from Paris and which have correspondents in the capital, will have been at the forefront two weeks ago, during the first round. The “estimates” and other “polls” provided by the newspaper will be taken up by many other French-speaking media in Belgium and Switzerland.
From 5:30 p.m. until the offices close at 8 p.m., “La Libre” is thus distributed in many estimates in his live paid in the French election as well as on his Twitter account. Around 5:30 p.m. Sunday April 10, she trumpeted that “according to a first exit poll, Emmanuel Macron and Marine LePen would be in the lead. They would both collect 24% of the votes”. Where does La Libre Belgique get these figures? She will be careful not to specify it, the Survey Commission, in France, closely monitoring the polling institutes daring to communicate estimates to the pirate media.
Not an exit poll during the first round but an opinion poll. Is it reliable?
Was it really an “exit poll”? La Libre Belgique provided some details at the dawn of the second round this Sunday, April 24. “Too quickly qualified as an ‘exit poll’ by us (as was technically the case in previous reviews), it was in fact an opinion poll carried out on the Internet by a recognized polling institute with a panel of representative citizens who have already been an elector.” On the other hand, she did not forget to embellish her tweet with the hashtag “#RadioLondres”, which brings together all the leaks on the social network, no doubt to win some visitors.
But there is a big problem with the method of La Libre Belgique and we will notice it very quickly: without transparency on the source or on the polling method disclosed at the same time as the first scores, the estimate provided is, a minimum to be taken with precaution. It can quickly become suspicious or… completely screwed up. Because far from the equality of 24% announced that evening, Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen will end this first round with a gap of almost 5 points (27.85% against 23.15%). A straw that still represents more than 1.6 million voters. If the two finalists announced at 5:30 p.m. were the right ones, this first estimate of La Libre Belgique, so enticing but very early to be really taken seriously, therefore seems to have made a splash…
La Libre Belgique will update its estimate until 8 p.m.
La Libre Belgique will however update its estimate of the result of the French presidential election several times, but will take time to realize that the first balance given at the end of the afternoon was totally erroneous. Around 6:30 p.m., the site of the Belgian newspaper gives “results at 6 p.m.” (sic) and even releases a graph. He still takes the trouble to warn: “be careful, these are results from a first exit poll”. Emanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen are then still given equally with 24% of the vote each, ahead of Jean-Luc Mélenchon at 19%. What will happen this Sunday, April 24 during the 2nd round? Answer in a few hours…