You have probably heard about the new bill that will restrict the consumption of alcohol between 10.30pm to 7am in public places.

Government feedback arm REACH (Reaching Everyone for Active Citizenry @ Home) conducted a recent telephone survey and found that 81 percent of respondents were supportive of the measures.

This is completely opposite of Straits Times online poll, with 78 percent disagreeing with the proposed bill.

So which poll is more accurate? Let us analyse:

If you believe in The Straits Times' online poll, here are the three possible reasons: 

1. The Internet is always right.

Source

2. You believe in the beauty of crowd-sourcing.

More than 9,000 netizens responded to the poll within a day.

In contrast, the REACH poll only interviewed 1,145 respondents.

So more respondents must be better, right? Oh never mind about the self-selection bias...

3. Trust the Straits Times.

Some netizens questioned whether REACH is neutral enough to conduct the survey in the first place.

But we have no issues with The Straits Times as a national English newspaper. They are supposed to be balanced and neutral.

If you believe in REACH's telephone poll, here are the three possible reasons: 

1. Trust the science (or the maths). 

The poll involved 1,145 randomly selected Singaporeans and Permanent Residents.

The data had been weighted to ensure it represents the demographics of Singapore in terms of gender, race and age.

In other words, the poll is more reflective of the sentiments of the general population than the ST online poll.

2. The telephone poll allows for a more considered response. 

Each call lasted about 10 minutes, while the ST poll just takes 5 seconds for one to vote.

3. Trust The Straits Times.

In its article about its own online poll, The Straits Times informed its readers that its online poll was not representative of the population.

In other words, The Straits Times admitted that its online poll may over-represent the views of some Singaporeans online.

So what was Straits Times' point in conducting the online poll in the first place? Here are two plausible reasons: 

1) The Straits Times can write an article about it.

2) The Straits Times can make the government commission a more scientific poll to prove them wrong. Interestingly, the poll was conducted between January 20-26., the same day The Straits Times article was published.

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