Experiences in telephone polls

[iamnikchick]

I took part in a telephone poll last night. Not very far into the poll, I was appalled at how slanted, leading, or nonsensical many of the questions were. First I was asked what I felt the two top issues facing Washington state are. I answered transportation and education, which isn't quite fair as I'm not sure if those are big issues across all of

Comments

[heliograph]

Before New Orleans was destroyed, my mom had a part time job as a phone poller. They were told when they were doing the poll for a TV station or newspaper, but never when it was for a non-media organization... and those were always more push-poll-y. She enjoyed the off-script responses, though, like the woman who knew the environment was going to hell because she never heard frogs at night anymore.

Since I can humanize the poor phone pollers, I'm willing to do them if they'll say who's sponsoring it, but if they don't that's a red flag that it is a push poll by a lobbying group, and I pass.

Polling has always been toasty, but the base of who gets excluded has shifted. It used to be the poor who didn't have phones, and now it is the more wealthy who're far less likely to have land lines. I do really wish they'd preface polls by saying:

"In a poll of likely voters who were at home, answered their phone, and agreed to take a poll, 75% said..."

[doccross]

I love doing those polls because as soon as I know if it's a rightwing based poll, I give the most liberal answers possible, even when, very rarely, I might agree with the more conservative answer.

For the left wing polls, I tend to still give far left liberal answers, just to keep the party from sliding too far to the center.

For religious polls, I answer as an abortion loving gay black female Satanist:)