Dear Editors/Producers,
As the federal election speculation rollercoaster continues, many media reports are misleading the public concerning public support of the federal parties, and hurting the media's credibility at the same time.

The reporting of the results of about a dozen polls in the past month has often neglected to mention one key fact -- the percentage of voters who told pollsters they were undecided.  Any media report that leaves the impression that pollsters found no undecided voters is misleading.

Assuming that the percentage of undecided voters is about 20-25 percent right now (as it usually is at this time before an election), and given that the gap in the polls between the Liberals and Conservatives has been no greater that five percent (when polling error rates are taken into account), the recent polling results could all be summarized as actually showing nothing important in terms of possible election results.

If my assumption is wrong, please let me and all Canadians know.  Hopefully sooner than later all Canadian media outlets will present a summary of recent polls that includes the percentage of undecided voters, and seriously takes into account the error rate, so that Canadians will be told the actual reality of the pre-election situation.

Or are we headed toward a repeat of the polling reporting fiasco of the June 2004 federal election (when the pollsters, one week before the election, were all wrong in their election result predictions)?