March 8 vote poll: media licence fee initiative could go either way

On March 8, Switzerland will vote on four proposals. The Swiss Broadcasting Corporation (SBC) survey conducted in mid-January points to a yes to individual taxation and the cash initiative. There is a stalemate on the SBC media licence fee initiative and the climate fund has little chance of success. It is a special challenge this time around for the gfs.bern pollsters commissioned by the SBC (Swissinfo's parent company) to conduct the survey. They have to divine how Swiss electorate will vote on the SBC initiative to reduce the media licence fee but are constrained by the need to use SBC's online platforms to do so. How do gfs.bern take this factor into account? "If we ask for opinions on the SBC initiative via the SBC channels, we naturally risk a distortion," says co-director Lukas Golder. There are methods to correct for this: queries about past voting behavior, for example, against which the current statements are weighted and calibrated. "The correction in the weighting that ...