Gallup World Headquarters - World headquarters for Gallup, Inc. (polling, etc.) in downtown Washington, DC (Photo thanks to Flickr user afagen, available under by-nc-sa v2.0)
HOW POLLS CAN BE MANIPULATED
I am one who is very skeptical about political polls. I am agonizing over the fact that a lot of political polls are showing Republicans over Democrats right now. At this point, if anything should be obvious is that Republicans should be behind by double digits.
Why is there such disparity? Why are polls showing that Republicans are ahead? To answer these questions one has to look at several issues. The first one is the voters themselves; are they so frustrated by the dismal economy and the unemployment figures that they are actually blaming incumbents and the Democrats in particular for not fixing America’s ills?
But wait a minute here…aren’t the Republicans to blame for this mess we are in? Aren’t the Republicans also responsible for standing in the way and obstructing any measures, any legislation that would fix the problems they left behind? because if this is indeed the case then the lies and obstructionist tactics that they have been perpetrating against the American people have been working.
When I see a poll I ask myself if it was conducted in good faith and fairly…was it worded in such a way as to steer the person polled in one direction or another?….I like to know who conducted the poll and who paid for it. For obvious reasons the people who conduct polls don’t want to be so far off the real mark that when the results come back they stand there with egg on their faces. For this reason they always tell you that there is a margin of error. This margin varies greatly but I venture say that this margin is almost number by number matching the disparity of the intent.
If a poll is ordered and contracted by Republicans, then you look and see what the margin of error is and award it to the Democrat because it is almost a constant that it is the amount that the poll is exaggerated or tilted.
Then one also has to look at who and where the poll was taken from. Don’t fool yourself into thinking that these people polled were just pulled out of a hat…randomly and without any guiding criteria. The pollsters have lists of registered voters, identified by party affiliation and propensity to vote one way or another. Clearly this can produce polls that are askew.
Then lastly, there is the Hail Mary poll…I got one of them in the 2008 election…it went sort of like this: “Have you chosen a candidate for sheriff to vote for in the upcoming election?....it went on: Are you aware that sheriff Jones has allowed strip joints to flourish and prosper all along US1? Then they continued: “Are you aware that sheriff Jones does not go after prostitution rings operating in the open all along US1? Knowing what we just told you, do you still plan to vote for Jones for sheriff? Do you know what I told the caller? “Listen here, I don’t care if Sheriff Jones ran up and down US1 naked…I am still going to vote for him because he is not a Republican; it is going to be a cold day in hell before I vote Republican” and then I hung up.
I received yet another one the next day. This one also mentioned that prostitution rings were operating openly and the government was allowing it by ignoring the county and state laws. My answer was quick and unequivocal: “oh, I see, well then Republicans should be happy that government is not interfering with business at least not in this case…isn’t that one of the Republican’s main beef, that there should be less government interference with business and the free enterprise system? As far as I know, prostitution is the oldest business in the world…and it is the best business as well because you got it, you sell it, and you still got it”. I am sure that the pollster was utterly frustrated by my answer.
One major distinguishing difference between scientific and unscientific polls is who picks the respondents for the survey. In a scientific poll, the pollster identifies and seeks out the people to be interviewed. In an unscientific poll, the respondents usually "volunteer" their opinions, selecting themselves for the poll.
Here are the 20 questions Sheldon R. Gawiser, Ph.D. and G. Evans Witt* say should be the criteria for polls:
- Who did the poll?
- Who paid for the poll and why was it done?
- How many people were interviewed for the survey?
- How were those people chosen?
- What area (nation, state, or region) or what group (teachers, lawyers, Democratic voters, etc.) were these people chosen from?
- Are the results based on the answers of all the people interviewed?
- Who should have been interviewed and was not? Or do response rates matter?
- When was the poll done?
- How were the interviews conducted?
- What about polls on the Internet or World Wide Web?
- What is the sampling error for the poll results?
- Who’s on first?
- What other kinds of factors can skew poll results?
- What questions were asked?
- In what order were the questions asked?
- What about "push polls?"
- What other polls have been done on this topic? Do they say the same thing? If they are different, why are they different?
- What about exit polls?
- What else needs to be included in the report of the poll?
- So I've asked all the questions. The answers sound good. Should we report the results?
*http://www.ncpp.org/?q=node/4
PHOTO SOURCE: http://www.glassdoor.com/Photos/Gallup-Office-Photos-E7246.htm