Abstract
In the July 2001 election of the House of Councillors, THE YOMIURI SHIMBUN was able to conduct an accurate forecast of the landslide victory of the LDP in its nationwide survey on more than 60,000 eligible voters. For this poll, the YOMIURI adopted the telephone survey, selecting samples randomly from electoral registers. The suggested reasons for the gratifying results are the influence of “Koizumi phenomenon” and the improvements of the method of the survey. However, due to the large number of unlisted numbers, this survey actually failed to reach a considerable number of eligible voters.
Furthermore, since listed numbers are already gradually on the decrease, by the next national election, the dilemma of reaching a significant number of voters will be even more problematic. Therefore, toward an accurate survey for the next election, improved methods of sampling are necessary, and in the case of the telephone survey, an adoption of RDD (Random Digit Dialing) is suggested.
