Do they lie?

Attempts to ascertain respondents' attitudes and behavior in respect to sensitive subject matters through classical interviewing methods carry a significant risk of obtaining insincere responses. By employing three alternative types of interviewing methods, that is, regular interview, ballot-box, and the randomized response technique, one finds that past voting behavior, future voting intentions and attitudes toward issues which determine party affiliation are considered by many Israeli voters as sensitive, hence, they tend to lie about them when interviewed in a regular manner more often than when interviewed by either of the other two methods. It is also shown that the degree of dependence between the respondents' attitudes toward certain sensitive political issues and their voting behavior is stronger when interviewed in a less obtrusive manner, for example, by resorting to the ballot-box method.