Greeks Say No – 61%; Late Polls Say 50-50?

The left wing Syriza government wins a no vote in a snap election Sunday, July 5. Final results were 61 percent to 39 percent. A total of 6.1 million votes, a little over half the electorate.

Most Greek polls predicted a close election, with a slight lead for the ‘no” vote, including those on July 4 and conducted in late June. But the series of polls just as news coverage became most intense from June 30 to July 3 showed the “yes” position in the lead within the margin of error, with 10 percent or more undecided. Reporting covered it as razor close.

• Greek Referendum Poll Shows Lead for “No” Vote, but Narrowing, Reuters, 7-1-15
• Poll Suggests Greek Referendum Close, but “Yes” has Momentum, Wall Street Journal, 7-3-15
• Poll Shows Greeks Split on Referendum on Austerity, ALCO for To Ethnos newspaper, Aljazeera, 7-3-15
• Greek debt crisis: Polls close in bailout referendum, BBC, 7-5-15

The polling in this election will no doubt be added to the growing list of recent polling mishaps.

See The Buzz:
Europeans Pick Least Hardworking and Most Corrupt
Populist Left Takes Command of Greece
The Europe of Brussels is Dead

Also see:
FiveThirtyEight: The Polls Were Bad in Greece. The Conventional Wisdom Was Worse.
Huffington Post: Why the Polls in Greece got it Wrong