Monitoring of public interest and awareness
The Commission conducted three opinion polls. Each sought to assess the level of public understanding of the Treaty in general, and to ascertain the issues that were of concern to voters in relation to the referendum.
The first poll taken in July informed the Commission’s decision to organise its public information campaign on the basis that voters were starting with a higher level of understanding of the Treaty than in 2008. The results were also considered when the Commission was deciding what issues it should focus on in its material.
The second opinion poll, in early September, showed growing understanding of the Treaty and also identified some new issues that were of concern which had not emerged earlier. These findings informed some changes in the text of the Commission’s advertising.
The final wave of research took place immediately after polling day. It was designed primarily to assess in detail the effectiveness of different elements of the Commission campaign both to measure value for money and to inform future Commissions in their work.
In deciding what questions to put to voters, the Commission was conscious of the need to ask questions that would allow for valid comparisons between polls taken during the 2008 and 2009 referendums. In 2009 it used the same research company, Behaviour and Attitudes, as had the 2008 Commission. Several of the key questions asked in 2009 were identical to those asked in 2008.
A number of clear trends emerged. Perhaps the most fundamental for the Commission was the steady change in voter understanding of the Lisbon Treaty. Voters were asked to choose between five different descriptions of their level of understanding of the Treaty, ranging from one saying that they did not understand it at all to, at the other end of the scale, one saying they understood it very well. This question was asked three times during the 2008 campaign and three times during the 2009 campaign.
The results are shown in Graph 1 in the next section of this report. (This graph is available in PDF format only (23kb). If you are unable to access the PDF please contact the Referendum Commission's Access Officer, Mr Aidan Moore (Tel 01-6395712 or 087-9175186 - email aidan_moore@ombudsman.gov.ie) who will try to make it available to you in an alternative format.)
Voters’ stated understanding of the Treaty rose steadily as the campaign progressed, as indeed it had done since the first of the 2008 Commission’s polls in April of that year. In April 2008, just 20 per cent said they understood the referendum to some extent, quite well or very well. In May 2008, this had risen to 27 per cent and in June 2008 it stood at 44 per cent.
At the outset of the 2009 campaign in July 2009, this had risen to 60 per cent, rising to 63 per cent in September to a high of 72 per cent immediately after polling day.
The efforts of the Commission and the volume of communication by campaigners in the course of the campaigns undoubtedly helped increase public understanding. The polling company suggested that the increase in understanding between the campaigns was due to the fact that discussion of the Treaty did not stop after polling day in 2008 but continued between the two referendums, in particular during the 2009 European Parliament election campaign. The polling company suggests, and the Commission tends to agree, that this discussion over a prolonged period helped increase public understanding.
The Commission was very pleased with the actual voter turnout of approximately 58% on polling day of 2nd October.
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