LIBDEM campaign materials have been ridiculed for their "misleading" and "sleight of hand" tactics.
The post, which was made by a Twitter account run by the Bath and north east Somerset LibDems, depicts the LibDems position in north-east Somerset shows a promising level of support for the party, but this crumbles when eagle-eyed viewers get to the small-print.
While the graph shows the LibDems dominating Labour by a large margin what they failed to make clear until the fine-print was the source of the data.
The tiny text at the bottom reads: "Survation polled 405 respondents aged 18+ living in NE Somerset with the question: 'Imagine that the result in your constituency was expected to be very close between the Conservative and Liberal Democrat candidate, and none of the other parties were competitive. In this scenario, which party would you vote for?'"
This means people were asked who they'd vote for between LibDems and Torys; two options.
Not only did the LibDems lose the binary choice, a considerable proportion of people asked still chose a third option.
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James Dornan SNP MSP tweeted: "I see the @LibDems have started off the election campaign as they mean to continue ... by misleading and sleight of hand of course. When dealing with the dodgy LibDems it always makes sense to read the small print."
I see the @LibDems have started off the election campaign as they mean to continue...by misleading and sleight of hand of course. When dealing with the dodgy LibDems it always makes sense to read the small print. #VoteSNP #VoteSNPToProtectTheSNHS pic.twitter.com/kViUL0rbqA
— James Dornan SNP (@glasgowcathcart) October 31, 2019
The team behind the tweet defended it, saying: "The clear conclusion from this poll is that Lib Dem support is surging in North East Somerset, the Conservatives are dropping fast and Labour are in free fall. That is true whichever of the two questions you look at.
"These election results and the Survation poll show beyond doubt that the Lib Dems are the only realistic alternative to Mr Rees-Mogg. The second question asked voters how they would vote if they thought it was between the Tories and the Lib Dems, which it obviously is, and the answer was that we are only 6% behind.
"The Survation poll was conducted completely independently by a highly respected polling company and any suggestion that they were biased is silly. They would be out of business if that were the case."
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