Econcult: Area of Research in Economics of Culture and Tourism

The Internet has been a true revolution that is opening up interesting research possibilities for social scientists. As a survey method, it has obvious advantages that deserve to be explored for electoral prospecting. On the occasion of the 2010 elections for rector of the University of Valencia, an online scientific survey of an electoral process was conducted for the first time in Spain. The survey clearly showed the general trends of the election and the ranking of the candidates, influenced the campaign strategies of the candidates and allowed us to confirm two hypotheses about the behavior of the voters that we thought a priori would occur: the effects of gender and center of affiliation. The post-stratification and calibration techniques employed, however, were not able to sufficiently correct the survey’s non-response bias: the predictions systematically underestimated the results of the winning candidate.