Letter from WAPOR President (October 2024)

Oct 16, 2024
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Video from the WAPOR President: https://youtu.be/4OUUpvrWZ5M?si=qLuTYh7pkVkGUntI

Note: This document was translated from English into many different languages. In case of any discrepancy or inconsistency between the English version and any other translation, the English version shall always prevail.

Robert Chung, WAPOR President

The year of 2024 has been branded by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) as the biggest election year in human history. Half of the world’s population – some 3.7 billion people – are eligible to vote in 72 countries, so UNDP calls this the “super year for elections”.[1] If you would follow the count of the Wikipedia, then the list of countries will go up to more than 100,[2] including eight of the world’s ten most populous nations. A few days before the arrival of 2024, Time published an article and asserted that “2024 is not just an election year. It’s perhaps the election year… [because] more voters than ever in history will head to the polls…” It called 2024 “the ultimate election year”.[3]

To us in WAPOR, this “super year for elections” has two very important meanings – it is our own election year for choosing our next-next President, and it is also an important year in human history when we as public opinion researchers have a lot to contribute.

Let me quote (extensively) from our website which explains the importance of our role, especially when we meet again in St Louis seven months later:

In 2024, nearly half of the world’s population is voting in national elections in an era of rising global tensions. Many countries are facing economic threats fueled by geopolitical turmoil as well as military conflicts… democracy and the freedoms to conduct and publish opinion polls are threatened. As political landscapes shift, pre-election polls gain more and more importance as seismographs of political developments as well as forecasts for elections.

Polling thus plays a critical role by helping politicians gauge public opinion and enabling voters to understand which candidates or policies are gaining or losing popularity… For our community of world-wide public opinion researchers, it is more than ever important to enable high-quality polls because they provide accurate insights into voter sentiment and the likely outcome of elections. Reliable polls, as a unique voice of the people, help ensure informed decision-making, enable effective campaign strategies, and uphold the integrity of the democratic process by highlighting shifts in public opinion. In an era of increasing political polarization and misinformation, robust polling is essential for reflecting true voter intentions and safeguarding the fairness and transparency of elections.

For WAPOR 2025 it is thus time to reflect on all sorts of polls and surveys which are conducted over the long run or precisely in this unique year for democracy in 2024. We aim for exploring the crucial role that opinion polls play in elections, examining both their value and their limitations. Through discussions on the technical challenges of polling, and their broader impact on political campaigns and voter behavior, we aim to foster a deeper understanding of the various approaches to opinion polling in a global context.

The Theme of our 2025 Conference is “The Evolving Landscape of Election Polls: Challenges, Biases, and Innovations in a Polarized World”, and the call for papers is already opened, up until December 20. However, please do not assume that this is an all-election conference. We will continue to address broad topics like methodological principles, comparative studies, media issues, misinformation, artificial intelligence, data mining and archiving, challenges to our core values, the freedoms to conduct and publish polls, the rise of defence and security, conflict resolution and other humanity issues. In other words, we will continue to discuss and accumulate knowledge on topics we have been discussing, but the experience of democratic elections in 2024 will be in the limelight.

Now, back to our own WAPOR election. We will be electing four Council positions this year: Vice President/President-Elect, and Chairs of the Conference, Education, and Professional Standards Committees. In other words, we are electing our next-next President who will he leading WAPOR as we celebrate our 80th Anniversary. To me, it is just like yesterday that we celebrated our 75th Anniversary or Diamond Jubilee in Dubai in 2022. We reviewed our achievements over the past three-quarters of a century, further consolidated ourselves with the re-confirmation of our core values, broke new grounds into new technologies, while standing very firm on our faith and commitment to humanity. We now go back to study and conduct elections.

As per our Constitution, a call for nominations was previously sent to all WAPOR members. Our Electoral Committee led by our Past President Tim Johnson is in the process of reviewing these nominations to assemble a final list of candidates for each office. This process involves careful consideration of nominee qualifications and eligibility, and efforts are made to ensure a reasonable geographic balance of candidates. The Committee will announce the final list of all candidates for the open positions before the end of October, and voting will take place during November.

To the best of my understanding, incumbent WAPOR Presidents do not engage themselves in choosing candidates, though they are sometimes consulted. Past Presidents, however, lead the process and help to formulate succession plans. I respect this system, and I have never participated in the nomination process except when I was a candidate myself. However, as I said in my last President’s Video, “I will vote for the candidates I consider most suitable and capable. I encourage all fellow members to actively participate in this year’s nomination and voting process.” I also wrote, “As professionals, we all know that election is a sacred matter. As WAPOR members, let us practice what we preach.”

I now turn to other important matters. Whoever will be leading WAPOR in the years to come, we need your input. All members should have by now received invitation to participate in our annual membership survey. For those who had attended our 77th Annual Conference in Seoul, we need your feedback to plan ahead for St Louis. The survey will take you 20 minutes or so, but your contribution will have a great impact to our planning for 2025. If you have not responded to the survey yet, please, check your mailbox for the invitation email with your personalized link. If you can not find the link, please, contact WAPOR Secretariat at admin@wapor.org. 

At our last Executive Council Meeting held on September 17, it was noted that around 30 countries will have their National Representatives’ term ending this year. Please check here (https://wapor.org/call-for-wapor-national-representatives-for-the-2025-2026-term/) for details. If you happen to know of any members from these countries, including yourself, who may want to become a National Representative, please let us know. The relevant provision in our Constitution is as follows: “The Membership Committee shall initiate actions to maintain and increase membership. The Committee shall recommend to the President individual members to serve as National Representatives. These representatives shall promote the mission of WAPOR in their countries or societies. National Representatives are appointed by the President for a two-year term, with the possibility of one additional two-year term, for a total of four years. Except for reappointments to fill a seat due to mid-term vacancy, former National Representatives may reprise their position only after two years.”

Following my previous forecast, our new online column “Spotlight Interview” is now opened on our website. It is a new initiative from our Publications Committee “aimed at showcasing the accomplishments, trajectories and stories of our members in the field of public opinion research”. These interviews, released roughly every other month, will primarily feature students and early-career researchers, National Representatives as well as Regional Chapter leaders.  Please click here (https://wapor.org/publications/spotlight-interviews/) to read the Spotlight Interview with Mao Li and Stephanie Morales, recipients of the our 2024 Janet A Harkness Student Paper Award.

Finally, here comes our membership count per our Executive Director Kseniya Kizilova’s update of October 8: Currently, we have 827 members including individual, organizational, and Friends of WAPOR members. This figure does not include another 85 individuals who joined a chapter without registering through our central system, so the count should actually be 913. While we should be very happy with this achievement, assuming that quality also goes with quantity, I am nevertheless appealing to all of you to do even better, in the remaining few months before we move onto 2025. In my recent communication with Hayk Gyuzalyan, our Membership Chair, he is in favour of continuing the Friends of WAPOR Pilot Scheme beyond 2024, and he also supports the idea of extending the “Friendship Period” of all current Friends, together with those will join later this year, to the end of 2025 without paying another USD10. This may help us further strengthen our WAPOR Community, and I quote these descriptions of our FoW Scheme from our website (https://wapor.org/membership/friends-of-wapor/):

Friends of WAPOR are individuals, who, even though not members of our organization, are in some ways connected to WAPOR’s core mission: the promotion of the best practices and the right to conduct and publish public opinion research around the world. Friends of WAPOR are professionals and academics at an early (or later) stage in their careers, and students, whose work, research, studies, or professional development may be enhanced by building connections with our community of WAPOR members. More specifically, Friends of WAPOR are granted access to the WAPORnet Listserv, which allows them:

  • To stay connected to all WAPOR members and Friends of WAPOR around the world

  • To stay up to date on global and regional WAPOR news, events, calls for papers, and developments about public opinion research all over the world

  • To find cross-national research partners and support for/access to international research

  • To find opportunities to exchange knowledge and ideas with academic and professional researchers

  • To receive the support of an international network of experts with regard to legal restrictions and other threats to the freedoms to conduct and publish public opinion research…

I hope all of you will find this FoW Scheme helpful to your promotion of WAPOR. If so, please consider sponsoring your students and co-workers to join FoW by paying the USD10 for them in whole or in part. This USD10 will be refunded if any FoW will finally become our member. With the our newly redesigned membership portal, the registration process is much easier. Just ask your students or co-workers to click on https://access.wapor.org/ to create a free user account if they do not have one, then proceed. I myself intend to sponsor at least 20 students before the end of the year to become Friends. Please join me.

 

Humbly yours,

Robert Chung

WAPOR President

 

 

 

[1] https://www.undp.org/super-year-elections

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_elections_in_2024

[3] https://time.com/6550920/world-elections-2024/