Are Kathleen Wynne's Liberals really way behind in the polls?

The Ontario election race might be a whole lot closer than you think.

An investigation released Monday into a polling company's admitted "failure" inCalgary's recent mayoral election is prompting the firm to cast doubt on the method it used.

Thatsame method is being used in theOntario polls that showthe biggest leads for Patrick Brown's Progressive Conservatives over Premier KathleenWynne'sLiberals.

• Ontario polls showing different results, and different methodologies might be why
• Pollster admits its methods missed Naheed Nenshisupporters in Calgary election

The polling firmMainstreetResearch says themethod itusedin Calgary, known asinteractivevoiceresponse (IVR), underestimated support for Mayor NaheedNenshiby a wide margin, by failingtosurvey enough younger voters. These polls, sometimes described as robocall polling, ask voters to indicate their answers by pressing numbers on their phone keypad.

"We missed a lot of these young voters because they are harder to reach," said Mainstreetpresident Quitto Maggiin a statement following the release of the investigation. The investigation also revealed that younger voters who were reached by the pollsters were significantly less likely than others to respond tothe questions. It means the firm's poll results in Calgary likely overestimated older, more conservative voters.

"While IVR isstill very muchpart of the present of polling, it may not be part of its future,said JosephAngolano,vice president of analytics forMainstreet Research in his investigation report."We might be starting to witness the beginning of the end for telephone polling."

All thiscould have implications for how you view the Ontario election race. Polls that are usingdifferent methods are showing different results, CBCpolling analyst EricGrenierrevealed last week..

The polls showing the closest race in Ontario are conducted online. Theydrawfrom a large pool of tens of thousands of voters, allowing thepollsters to pick a sample that they say is representative of the population, although it is not randomly selected.

Polls conducted by Campaign Research Inc. using this method suggestWynneand the Liberals have narrowed the gap with the Progressive Conservatives over the past six months. The firm's most recent poll released on Friday put the Liberals and the PCs in a statistical dead heat.

The polls that show the Liberals trailing by the widestmargin have been conducted using IVR, by Mainstreetand Forum Research.

In every Forum Research pollfor the past year, the PCs have led the Liberals by at at least 13 points. Forum's most recent poll released earlier this month puts the Liberals in third, 16 percentage points behind the PCs. Mainstreet's last Ontario poll was conducted in May and gavethe PCs a 14 point lead over the Liberals.

The stark differences in the poll results raisequestions: Are people who are unhappy with Kathleen Wynnesomehow more likely to respond to robocall polls? Or are the online panels under-representing conservativevoters?

Problem getting young people to answer poll

Campaign Research no longer uses IVR in its political polling because its shortcomings have become too significant, said the firm's president RichardCiano..

"The problemisn't necessarily finding young people to call," Cianosaid Monday in an interview with CBCNews. "Theproblemis actually getting them to complete thesurvey."

The lack of response from younger voters toIVRhas intensified in just the past two years, said Ciano.

"They screen the calls. If they don't recognize [the number]they don't pick up. And even if they do pick up, when they understand that it's a phone survey, they're just not interested."

The president of Forum Research, Lorne Bozinoff, points to his firm's accuratepredictions of the results of the B.C. and Nova Scotia provincial elections this year, as well as the Calgary mayoral race, as proof that IVR works.

"The most important thing in looking at this is the track record," said Bozinoffin an interview with CBC News on Monday.

Bozinoffrejects any notion that Forum's pollsare missing younger voters. HisIVRmethod uses "random digit dialling" to callbothcellphonesandlandlines.

• The 'crisis' in polling pits online sampling methodagainst robocalls

"Every single person in the province has anequalprobability of us calling them," saidBozinoff. "As long as you have a cellphone or a landline, you have a chance of being surveyed by the Forum poll."

He also said the response rate to his firm's political polls is high.

"People are really anxious to give their comments,"saidBozinoff. "They love doing ... shortIVRpolitical surveys."

Bozinoffdismisses polls of online panels as "not scientific," unable to indicate a true margin of error since the sample is not random.

"You can't rely on them," he said. "These are people who want to do surveys all day long, they're not like you and me."