Have you ever been part of a political opinion poll?

Question

We keep getting inundated with opinion poll results.....who are the people they are polling?

How does someone get to participate?

Would you want to participate?

How reliable or accurate do you think they are?

Does the result of those polls affect how you think or feel about the subject?

Can our decisions be 'molded' by them?Do they tell us how we should feel and if we aren't in the majority of the answerers can it or should it 'shame' us into changing our opinion?

Answer 1

Shoot as the elections get closer I know I will start to get calls on a daily basis, that's how it was last election. Poll people were just driving me up a wall. I participate most of the time unless their timing is bad.

I do not pay attention to the polls I vote for what I feel is right. It is not a popularity contest and this is not high school.

Answer 2

I was a respondant twice (once on the evening of September 11, 2001....which I shouldn't have answered).

1. It is random, but your name does have to be listed.
2. I would not want to any more.
3. They are fairly reliable, and most importantly they know how wrong they could be (margin of error), which is something that very few other systems have. It does depend on the polling method. Gallup for instance revolutionized polling in the Truman/Dewey Race and Zogby says that he changed the accuracy of the polling in the 2000 race.
4. They usually don't. But sometimes I do internalize the results.
5. Their job isn't to tell us the right way to do things, but simply to show the breakdown of public opinion. They can serve usefully as a guide to politicians wanting to serve their constituencies, but at the same time can be used to manipulate a lot of issues.

Good questions. One final note, I heard an argument on talk radio a couple years ago (after the 2000 election problems) from a statician who proposed doing away with the electoral college in favor of a poll that would essentially do a really good survey and then say who the President was based upon the few respondants to that survey. Thankfully that didn't get anywhere.

Answer 3

No. And great question. Who are these people getting polled? Who is polling? Why?

I think much research is biased for the same reasons.

Answer 4

Polls are generally put on by colleges and Liberal media outlets, They are extremely bias and unreliable. They also use questions that can be interperted different ways. Like they ask do you approve of the way President Bush has handled the war on terror in Iraq? This could be shown as Bush's approval ratings being low, or American people don't apporve of Bush's war on terror methods.. They just word things to be used against him No matter what is really being felt.

Answer 5

good question. They choose you I would assume, randomly or not.
The only one that ever called me was the NRA did once about some gun control stuff.. but other than that no no one has ever polled me.
I would of course do one if I ever got asked to.

Answer 6

I haven't been polled in many years. I'll bet the state of CA is saturated with pollster's calls.

Answer 7

I have yes. Several hundred times. But to no avail i'm afraid.