Reply #139: Not Ignorant [View All]

[erpowers]

To say a poll may have been oddly worded is not ignorant of reality. As I said before I have spoken with two people who work in the political/polling field and they both have said that poll can be made to say anything that the person putting forward the poll wants it to say. In addition, to the wording of a poll the numbers of people polled can be a way to manipulate a poll. If you do not believe me just look at the polls used in the Schwarzenegger/Davis poll. USA Today ran with the headline that Schwarzenegger held a 60-40 lead over Davis and the field of people running for California governor. Anyone who inspected to poll as I did would have learned that USA Today used two different sets of numbers and reported them as one. The 60% number came from a group that only contained 586 people while the 40% number came from a group that contained 700+ people. Upon inspection it was clear to see that the high poll numbers for Schwarzenegger came from the group that included smaller numbers of people. I think the polls from 9/11 should be examined by a political science expert to see what other questions people were asked to determine what people may have been really thinking. Even though polls seem simple they are not that simple. It is easy to put out a high number and then fail to tell people that other questions revealed results that put the high number into question. I would also like to restate that Frank Luntz has gotten into trouble with the polling association for doing the things or things similar to what I have just mentioned and mentioned before. Polls can be manipulated. It just takes a person who knows what they are doing or even a person who just makes a mistake.