Silent voters remain the wild card, and they still decide elections

EVEN in an era of constant polling, social media sentiment tracking and political commentary, one group of voters continues to unsettle election predictions: silent voters.

In an exclusive Sinar Harian interview with Ilham Centre director Hisommudin Bakar, he said this segment remains one of the most critical and unpredictable variables in Malaysia’s electoral landscape, often explaining why results sometimes defy expectations on polling night.

“In a political environment that is increasingly fluid, silent voters and fence-sitters are among the most important variables in our analysis and election projections,” he said.

Unlike earlier decades where voter loyalty was more stable, Hisommudin said today’s voting behaviour is dynamic and constantly shifting, making static or one-off surveys insufficient.

Based on Ilham Centre’s field experience, the size of the silent voter group is usually large when studies are conducted well ahead of the campaign period.

However, it gradually shrinks as polling day approaches and voters begin to make final decisions.

“Based on experience, the number of silent voters is typically high when research is done far from the campaign period, but it decreases gradually once voters start deciding,” he said.

This transition period, he said, is where projections become most fragile.

"Projections are always exposed to a certain margin of error, especially in the final phase," he said, acknowledging that late shifts in voter sentiment can significantly alter outcomes.

To capture these changes, Ilham Centre conducts research more frequently and in greater depth, tracking sentiment over time rather than treating voter preference as fixed.

Hisommudin said polling today is no longer about annual or long-term trends alone. Instead, sentiment can change weekly, sometimes even within day,influenced by campaign narratives, local issues and political messaging.

As a result, he said election forecasting has become less about certainty and more about probability.

Among all voter segments, he said young voters are the most fluid and difficult to predict.

To better understand this group, Ilham Centre combines quantitative surveys with in-depth interviews and on-the-ground observation, allowing researchers to assess not just voting intention, but also underlying motivations, local culture and emerging trends.

This approach is particularly important for younger voters, whose political decisions are less tied to party loyalty and more influenced by current issues, campaign momentum and surrounding narratives.

“Younger voters have decision-making patterns that are harder to predict,” he said, noting that their choices are often shaped closer to polling day.

He said understanding silent voters requires more than percentages and charts. It involves reading emotions, hesitation and uncertainty, elements that do not always appear clearly in numerical data.

By combining quantitative measurements with qualitative insights, he said projections can better reflect the realities on the ground, even if uncertainty remains unavoidable.

He added that in Malaysia’s evolving political landscape, silent voters may speak softly, or not at all, before election day. But when ballots are counted, their collective voice often proves decisive.