Petition Filed Against Channel 14 and Pollster Over Leading Election Survey Questions

A new petition filed with Central Election Committee Chairman Supreme Court Justice Noam Solberg accuses pollster Next Data and Channel 14 of publishing election surveys that lack essential methodological details and rely on leading questions.

The petition, submitted by the Academy for a Democratic Israel association through attorneys Ariel Nissim and Avital Rosenfeld of the Meitar law firm, targets Next Data and Channel 14, where the polls are regularly analyzed by Shlomo Filber. The legal challenge does not target a specific broadcasted survey, but rather presents a questionnaire used by the firm as a stark example of why full methodological transparency is required.

According to the petition, respondents were asked asymmetric questions designed to prime opinions, such as: "What do you like most about Benjamin Netanyahu?" immediately followed by "What do you like least about Gadi Eisenkot?" Questions regarding what respondents disliked about Netanyahu or liked about Eisenkot were notably absent.

The questionnaire then subjected respondents to a series of loaded statements regarding Gadi Eisenkot, asking them to mark them as true or false. Among the assertions presented were claims that Eisenkot cannot form a government without Mansour Abbas, Ayman Odeh, and Ahmad Tibi, and that he was allegedly willing to allow Iran to acquire nuclear weapons. Respondents were subsequently asked: "Now, if you knew that all the previous statements about Gadi Eisenkot were true, who would you prefer for prime minister?"

Legal representatives for the association argue that such a sequence constitutes a manipulative leading format that skews results and creates a false impression of scientific rigor. Without full questionnaire disclosure, experts warn, the public cannot discern between professional polling and consciousness-shaping exercises.

The petition also highlights methodological discrepancies in two specific polls conducted for Channel 14 in August and September. The association points to unexplainable gaps in sample sizes, such as an initial sample size of 616 contrasted with 981 actual respondents, without adequate weighting and sampling explanations.

Professor Lior Sheffer of Tel Aviv University, who co-authored the expert opinion accompanying the petition, emphasized the gravity of the issue: "Voters' decisions in Israel are dramatically influenced by published polls during election periods. The public must have effective tools to distinguish between professional polling and tools designed to shape public perception."

Professor Michael Gilead of Tel Aviv University's School of Psychological Sciences warned that biased polls risk creating an artificial gap between reality and expectations, potentially paving the way for conspiracy theories regarding stolen elections if the final outcomes diverge from published trends.

The petitioners are asking Justice Solberg to compel Next Data to submit complete and corrected reports and to order Channel 14 to remove the disputed polls from public access. Channel 14 and Shlomo Filber have not yet provided a response.