As the first presidential election in five years approaches on Jan. 17, pollsters and experts warn that voters will be bombarded by a sea of skewed sociological survey results intended to sway their choices. Often, such bogus polls seek to persuade voters that their preferred candidate has no chance of making it into a second-round runoff on Feb. 7, thereby encouraging votes for one of the front-runners. With such spin doctoring at play, Ukrainians need reliable surveys. The graphs and tables show polls conducted on Nov. 21-29 by trusted sources. The surveys were conducted by U.S.-based International Foundation for Electoral Systems and financed by the United States Agency for International Development. The data are representative of the national population of Ukraine and have a margin of error of plus or minus 2.5 percent. All the interviews were conducted in Ukrainian and Russian by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology (KIIS).
