Scottish independence: latest polls too close to call,latest election updates, world election updates
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- Last Updated: Thursday, 22 January 2015 21:03
Scottish independence: latest polls too close to call
With just three days to go before the Scottish independence referendum, the latest polls range between an eight-point lead for the Yes camp and an eight-point lead for the No camp.
Four different polls were published yesterday, the final Sunday of the campaign. "At stake is not just the future of Scotland, but that of the United Kingdom, forged by the union with England 307 years ago," says Reuters. But the polls failed to paint a clear picture of how Scots might vote on Thursday.
A poll for the Sunday Telegraph gave First Minister Alex Salmond and his Yes Scotland campaign 54 per cent of the votes, putting the campaign for independence eight points ahead. Yet a poll for the Better Together campaign saw a similar divide, but in favour of a No vote. Two other polls for The Observer and the Sunday Times published results somewhere in between.
A rough average of all four polls suggests the two sides are almost neck and neck, with just a small lead for the No camp. owever, these figures do not include undecided voters, who account for between six and ten per cent of the electorate, according to the latest surveys.
This is where the focus now lies for both sides, says the Financial Times. More than 4.29 million Scots have signed up to vote on Thursday, equivalent to 97 per cent of the population, the largest electorate the country has ever known for any election or referendum. With up to a tenth still undecided, "campaigners for and against independence will now try to prise them from the fence in the last few days ahead of Thursday's historic referendum", says the FT. Here are the results of the last four polls, which were carried out between 9 and 12 September:
Observer/Opinium (1,055 polled)
No 49%
Yes 45%
Undecided 6%
Excluding undecided: No 47% Yes 53%
Sunday Times/Panelbase (1,014 polled)
No 47%
Yes 46%
Undecided 7%
Excluding undecided: No 51% Yes 49%
Sunday Telegraph/ICM (705 polled)
No 42%
Yes 48%
Undecided 10%
Excluding undecided: No 46% Yes 54%
Better Together/Survation (1,044 polled)
No 49%
Yes 42%
Undecided 9%
Excluding undecided: No 54% Yes 46%