[Vision2020] Dubious Polls

[Pat Kraut]

It is why I never believe the polls. 
PK
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Tbertruss at aol.com 
  To: vision2020 at moscow.com 
  Sent: Monday, September 27, 2004 9:51 PM
  Subject: [Vision2020] Dubious Polls



  SAM HUSSEINI, sam at accuracy.org, http://www.husseini.org, http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/opinion/viewpoints/stories/092704dnedihusseini.dba34.html 
  Author of the article "A Better Gauge of Public Opinion?" which appears in today's Dallas Morning News, Husseini said today: "With all the polling going on, it's remarkable that apparently not a single poll is asking whom people want to be president. Virtually every poll has a structure like this: 'If the next presidential election were held today between George W. Bush for the Republicans, John Kerry for the Democrats and Ralph Nader as an independent, for whom would you most likely vote?' Many people will reflexively say 'Bush' simply because they don't want Kerry, or 'Kerry' because they don't want Bush -- even if their first choice is Nader or some other third party candidate." 

  Husseini added: "Instead of really focusing on people's opinions, polls focus on the action of voting in a hypothetical context -- if the 'election were being held today' -- when we know it isn't. Pollsters apparently do that because they assume they should be predicting how the election will turn out, rather than offering a clear picture of what the public is thinking. A real 'public opinion' poll might ask: 'Regardless of his chances of winning, which of the following candidates do you most want to be president?' Another way would be to use Instant Runoff Voting: 'Please rank the following in order of whom you would personally want to be president.' By asking the questions they do -- and by not asking these other questions -- pollsters are in effect limiting the choices of the public. Polls should be a method for the public to articulate its desires rather than a tool of pundits or parties. Currently, polls solidify the status of the 'major candidates' and reduce citizens to little more than spectators at a horse race, or gamblers. 

  "These issues are key because of the role that polls play in our presidential election. For example, the Commission on Presidential Debates states that it will only allow candidates who achieve 15 percent in 'national public opinion polls' into its debates. But the current polls are not 'public opinion polls.' If the CPD genuinely wanted to fulfill its own criteria, it would rely on polls that actually ask the U.S. public who it wants to be president." Husseini is communications director for the Institute for Public Accuracy. 

  For more information, contact at the Institute for Public Accuracy: 
  Sam Husseini, (202) 332-5055; or David Zupan, (541) 484-9167 

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  V2020 Post by Ted Moffett 


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