The government's report on political reform has come under fire for its over-reliance on some opinion polls that were conducted through unprofessional means, a public-opinion expert says.
Robert Chung Ting-yiu, director of the Public Opinion Programme of the University of Hong Kong, criticised the government's report for extensively quoting polls regardless of their methodology and professional standards.
Findings of several polling agencies were quoted in the report, including those conducted by the University of Hong Kong, the Institute of Asia-Pacific Studies of Chinese University, the Hong Kong Research Association and Ming Pao.
Controversial conclusions, including that 60 per cent accepted universal suffrage for the chief executive in 2017 if it could not be attained by 2012, and that more than half supported retaining functional-constituency seats, were mostly drawn from the polls conducted by the Hong Kong Research Association.
'I believe some of the polls quoted were done through unprofessional means like using interactive-voice-response technology, which is not a recognised method of professional opinion polling,' Dr Chung said.
The Hong Kong Research Association confirmed yesterday that its survey was conducted by an interactive-voice-response system.
