A recent article by Aengus Carroll and George Robotham examines RIWI data and why the Irish same-sex marriage referendum was not a surprise. Through data collected using RDIT, experts are now able to address several core challenges to data collection amongst LGBTI populations, especially those in hostile states, in terms of cost, reach, security, and reliability.
As Carroll and Robotham states,
“Close examination of RIWI’s 2014 figures against the final outcome of the 2015 referendum in Ireland, indicate that the RIWI random intercept technology was an incisive tool to measuring emergent public opinion on the issue of marriage equality in mid-2014. A number of other factors, as we will discuss, came into play later in the campaign process that increased the percentage actually realized in favor of a ‘Yes’ vote, but these could not have been foreseen in 2014. In fact, RIWI’s randomized data suggested, and subsequently largely reflected, the shape that the actual campaign took.”
See the full article here.