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Why polls are cr@p!

Discussion in 'Fred's House of Pancakes' started by daniel, Oct 3, 2008.

  1. daniel

    daniel Cat Lovers Against the Bomb

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    Yesterday I got a phone call. A recorded voice asked me to press "1" if I was willing to take a political poll which would be reported to the media. I pressed "1." So it began asking the usual sorts of multiple-choice questions, asking me to press a number to answer. I told it my age range and my gender and who I'd vote for for president and that my mind is made up definitely, and that my political party is "other," (I belong to the Green Party) and that in the vote for governor of my state I'd vote for "other" (I plan on voting Green for governor).

    Now here's where it got stupid: After giving my answer that I'd vot for "an other" candidate for governor, it asked me, if I had to vote for the Dem or the Repub candidate for governor, which I'd choose, and the options were the Dem, the Repub, or "don't know." Now my answer to this question is that nobody has to vote in any given race, and that if there were no other choices but the D and the R, and no provision to write in a name, I'd skip that race and go on to the next item on the ballot.

    So I did not press anything. The voice told me, "I did not get a valid response..." and it repeated the question. Again I did nothing, and it repeated the question again, so, the suggested responses being 1, 2, or 3, I pressed 4. It kept asking, and I kept pressing 4.

    And then it hung up on me!

    Because I refused to answer an invalid question (sort of like, "Have you stopped beating your wife yet?") the system rejected me entirely.

    Any time you see the results of a poll, keep in mind that some people who will vote, are arbitrarily excluded from the polls because they won't answer misleading or invalid questions.

    Please do not use this thread to talk about candidates or who or what party people should vote for. That belongs in the political forum. Please only talk about the process of polling here.
     
  2. Stev0

    Stev0 Honorary Hong Kong Cavalier

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    You're just finding that out now? The news media has been playing that game for as long as there have been polls ("DEWEY DEFEATS TRUMAN!"). It mostly depends on what the editor wants the headline to say:

    Which one reflects your opinion:
    1. I support the bailout of Wall Street
    2. I hope hundreds of thousands of Americans are thrown out of work
    ("Americans Support Bailout")

    Do you support a bailout so Wall Street investment firm CEOs can buy a jacuzzi for their second Learjet paid with your tax money?
    ("American Public Is Against Bailout")
     
  3. dogfriend

    dogfriend Human - Animal Hybrid

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    I like the concept of push polls. Insinuate something in a question which has no basis in reality. You can influence a lot of people this way.
     
  4. PriusSport

    PriusSport senior member

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    There are far too many polls these days--and they are taken daily after the usual sound bites in the media. It's almost as if the media was orchestrating everything.

    Other than the Gallup poll, which has been around a long time, I would take the rest of them with a grain of salt. Changes in sampling and questions asked can change a result. And all of them are slightly different in those respects.

    In these daily tracking polls, it's hard to see how people can change their minds in 24 hours. It seems like just a big media game.
     
  5. thepolarcrew

    thepolarcrew Senior Member

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    What do you mean almost.

    I posted yesterday about an article in either News Week or Time mag that talked about aiming at a certain age group with cell phones. How they use weighted or unweighted calculations to come to their conclusions and it was 63% and I won't say for who.

    The response is going to be what you want it o be if targeting a preferred group.

    I think the media needs to be rounded up too!!!!
     
  6. eagle33199

    eagle33199 Platinum Member

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    Honestly... polling does have some uses, and when you get polls from many different sources telling you the same thing you can be at least decently sure you aren't being hoodwinked. However, i usually like to be able to see the questions that were asked as part of the poll before determining if one particular poll is bogus or not.

    As a hypothetical question in your poll daniel, i think it was misplaced and there should have been a response for "i wouldn't vote", as that is a very valid option. However, given the choice between my vote counting in the poll and being ignored, i probably would have gone with option 3 as the "best of the worst" answer :p
     
  7. daniel

    daniel Cat Lovers Against the Bomb

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    This was not a "push poll." It was a simple "Who would you vote for?" poll. The problem was that because it was automated, and they left out a very valid answer, the result was to force you to side with one of the major candidates or pretend to be undecided or get dumped out of the poll.

    I considered answering "don't know," but that would be to imply that I might vote for one of the 2 candidates.
     
  8. moxiequz

    moxiequz Weirdo Social Outcast

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