Back-Check
Re-contacting a share of survey respondents to verify enumerator honesty.
Short answer
What is Back-Check?
A back-check is the independent re-contacting of a fixed percentage of survey respondents to confirm that the interview took place and that responses were recorded accurately.
Definition
A back-check is the independent re-contacting of a fixed percentage of survey respondents to confirm that the interview took place and that responses were recorded accurately.
Why It Matters
Enumerator fabrication is the most common source of corrupted political survey data in India, and it is invisible without back-checking. A survey firm that cannot describe its back-check protocol is not producing reliable data.
Example in Indian Elections
A standard protocol independently re-contacts a defined share of respondents per enumerator, with any enumerator failing the check having their full workload discarded and re-fielded.
Related Terms
- Vote ShareThe percentage of total valid votes polled that a candidate or party receives.
- SwingThe change in vote share between two elections, measuring movement of support.
- Stratified SamplingDividing a population into groups and sampling proportionately from each.
- Turnout PropensityThe modelled likelihood that a given voter will actually vote.
- Cross-TabulationBreaking survey results down by demographic or behavioural subgroups.
- Sampling Error / Margin of ErrorThe uncertainty inherent in estimating a population from a sample.