While the total votes include blanks, null and undecided votes, valid votes only consider nominal votes, that is, those that were allocated to a candidate or party.
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Gabriel Marchesi, statistician and president of the Regional Statistics Council of the 4th Region, explains that the valid votes eeffectively define the winner of the elections.
“They transmit to the voter the prognosis of who will win the election, whether there will be a second round, among other things,” says Marchesi. The statistician understands that, as this is information capable of defining the political scenario, the disclosure of the percentage of valid votes ends up attracting greater attention from voters. “Valid votes show a scenario of definition, not uncertainty.”
Abstention and undecided
As polls indicate that Lula (PT) could win the election in the first round, valid votes are being released more frequently now.
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“The disclosure of this data must be done with great caution, as the results will not necessarily reflect the reality that will be observed on the street. Factors such as abstention and undecided voters, for example, can change the final scenario”, says Marchesi.
For Neale El-Dash, partner and research director at Sleek Data and creator of Polling Data, a Brazilian electoral poll aggregator website, when a poll ignores undecided voters, there is a considerable risk of generating distortion in the survey.
“On election day, no one is undecided. The person can vote valid, vote blank or null or even go to vote, but they will have to decide”, points out El-Dash.
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For both experts, it is essential to understand that research reflects the scenario at the time it was carried out.
“The result can always change completely in the last minute of the election”, concludes Marchesi.
Source: Estadão Content
