The instruments for measuring public opinion are rather costly and the costs are usually not included in the reports compiled by political parties or election contenders. Promo-LEX Association recommends explicitly regulating the transparency of costs of such instruments, by the model of political advertising or covering of the election campaign by the media, IPN reports.
Promo-LEX program director Nicolae Panfil said that clear regulations are needed. “But these should be balanced so as not to endanger the economic activity of sociological companies and primarily the public interest, including in the not few money that is pumped into this area,” the expert said in public consultations centering on the CEC draft regulations concerning the organization and conduct of opinion polls and exit polls during the electoral period.
Promo-LEX suggests reducing the period for examining by the Central Election Commission applications to conduct opinion polls from seven to three-five days. The experts consider the authorization of a poll within seven days, similar to the procedure for registering election contenders, is disproportionate. The effort to examine such a file is smaller than the effort to register an election runner.
Promo-LEX also proposes supplementing the regulations with the subjects that cannot commission, sponsor or carry out opinion polls and exist polls. As to the annulment of the authorization of an opinion poll and the banning of the dissemination of the results of this, Promo-LEX warns that it is not clear how the CEC will prove that the given poll “affects the electoral process” and “erroneously influences public opinion”. These phrases that were included in the draft regulations are vague and general. They should be excluded or the mechanism for identifying the errors, aspects and players that are affected should be specified.
The Association noted that the polls that do not refer to elections or politics can be conducted without the CEC’s permission. Respectively, the CEC president’s administrative consent to such polls it is not necessary.
