The number of voters in the opinion poll on alleviating the suffering of prisoner Abdel Baset Al-Megrahi reached 754 , and the voting results were as follows:
Transferred to a prison in a Muslim country: 9,02% ( 68 votes) Provides all information he has on the bombing: 71.09% ( 536 votes) Brings to trial again: 19,89% ( 150 votes) No need to clarify The message” or the advice that visitors and readers of this platform wish to convey to Mr. Al-Megrahi.
We note in this poll – as we noted in the previous one – that the percentages remained fixed within a certain range and did not witness sudden or suspicious changes at any time.
In a private message, one of the “seasoned” readers thankfully drew our attention to some caveats related to opinion polls conducted on the Internet. He made interesting observations about the accuracy of these polls and the extent to which they can be relied upon, and strongly criticized what we concluded from them in our analysis of the results of the previous referendum.
While we appreciate and respect those observations – and we may agree with the majority of them – we say that there are many statistical and scientific factors that make this method an approximate means of identifying the trends of public opinion and measuring the public’s opinions on the public issues put to vote. The results of these surveys are general indicators and not an accurate mathematical measure.
Public opinion polls suffer from many shortcomings, perhaps the most important of which is the number and quality of participants in relation to the general public. There is – in addition to many mathematical and statistical factors that do not need to go into – the factor of the degree of arithmetic error. In addition, the surveys conducted on the Internet do not allow the poll organizer to choose the participants in order to obtain an integrated segment that represents the various sectors and categories of the public to be polled in the case.
Therefore, while we do not claim that these polls come with conclusive and accurate results, we recommend taking them in their true, realistic context and as general indicators of what we can consider a general opinion in the Libyan arena. We do not forget that the results express the prevailing opinions among the readers and visitors of this platform before others, and it cannot be claimed that they automatically apply to all Libyans. The results should also be taken as only one criterion out of several that should be used to determine the trends of public opinion in a more accurate and realistic manner. After this clarification, which we hope will be useful, we urge our honorable readers to vote in the new poll on the priorities of the Libyan opposition at the current stage. And thank you.