Eugène Hoogstad
~ And other channels starting today ~
PHILIPSBURG--Independent researcher and consultant Eugène Hoogstad will be conducting an election poll on “The Daily Herald’s” website and other channels such as WhatsApp and Facebook in an effort to provide insight into how the public feels about the upcoming snap elections and how the electorate is likely to vote.
The poll will go live today, Tuesday, and will be open up to and including Sunday. “We ourselves will not make definite predictions, but will provide as much detailed insights as we can from the data which can be interpreted in a predictive manner,” Hoogstad said.
He told this newspaper that at the front end, the poll will only allow one response per device. However, at the back end checks will be done for multiple entries from the same IP address.
“Overall, we will not make things too complicated, as the most complex polling modelling I reviewed involves demographic and historical data that is not (yet) available in St. Maarten,” he said. “We will present different versions of the results, together with a methodological explanation. The information we obtain from the poll can be interpreted in multiple ways, and we want to help the public as much as possible in finding their way in that information.”
He said the idea for an election poll had come about as a way to make information on a key matter insightful, not only for the public, but also for candidates. “It goes beyond anecdotal or intuitive accounts. Transparency and spreading independent knowledge is something we support strongly. Plus, we feel it is something people would want to know, I know I do,” he explained.
He said any type of poll concerns measuring a sample and saying something about a population. “This inevitably involves bias and statistical modelling that influence accuracy. My 10-year experience lecturing and coordinating statistics courses at the University of Amsterdam helps in our efforts to optimise accuracy. Besides that, we also confer with colleague statisticians.”
Hoogstad said he has divided his time between Amsterdam and St. Maarten since COVID, using the opportunity to spend more time with family. “Over the last 10 years, after being a strategy consultant for some time, I have combined working in academia, at the University of Amsterdam, with working in practice as an independent researcher, consultant and project manager.
“Finding my way in St. Maarten, I am carrying out various projects, one of the most prominent being research on food security and agriculture, which was a collaboration between the Universities of St. Martin, Curaçao and Aruba. The research paper on St. Maarten will be published in a journal, though its final draft is already circulating. It outlines concrete interventions which are being developed as we speak,” he said. “Other projects cover a broad range of topics, from change management, multi-stakeholder collaboration, governance, and digital transformation, to socio-economic research.
“During my time here, I recognised an unfulfilled potential in terms of local research, which led to the concept of an independent research and development agency that I am currently establishing, with the help of a small team. A key driver for us is supporting developing local knowledge and research capacity, to reduce dependence on external expertise, and to contribute to self-sufficiency.”
