Seven organizations retained polling companies to analyze voter sentiment, and most of them fell short of the reality. The U.S. firm of Penn, Schoen & Berland, retained by the newspaper, El Siglo newspaper came closest with a difference of 5.38 points. The Spanish pollsters, Demoscopia, retained by the magazine Ahora, and Sigma, retained by Listin Diario, were furthest off the mark, and tied with a difference of 16.74 points each. In this comparison, point totals are determined by calculating the difference between actual and predicted outcomes and adding together the discrepancies for all three parties. The Penn, Schoen and Berland figures predicted 47% for Hipolito Mejia, who leads with 49.86%; 25% for Danilo Medina, who attained 24.95%; and 27% for Joaquin Balaguer, who received 24.61%. Applying this formula to all the surveys, the results in descending order of accuracy are: Penn, Schoen & Berland , for El Siglo 5.38 Gallup Poll, for Rumbo magazine 6.06 Grupo Economico Cibao, for La Nacíon 9.56 Hamilton, for Hoy 11.06 Tesis Consultores, for Última Hora 14.94 Demoscopia, for Ahora magazine 16.74 Sigma, for Listin Diario 16.74 Two other firms published survey findings without sponsorship among the communications media. The French company, Sofres, received the lowest score of all: 17.24 points. Another, conducted by Alfonso, Cabrera & Associates, based on the largest sample of any survey 3,000 voters found 7.5% of voters undecided. After theorizing as to the likely distribution of those voters, the Alfonso Cabrera poll predicted 50.5% for Mejia, 26.1 for Medina, and 21.8 for Balaguer, for a point deviation score of 4.74, the lowest of all.
