Monday, March 05, 2007

Predisposed To Polls.

Okay just a quick post because it is late, and I have to be at work real early tomorrow.

We have all seen online polls go bad, like the poll that just got unSuzukified, also lots of Globe and Mail polls seem to get freeped overnight. That's to be expected, given the chance, someone will try to corrupt an online poll to reflect their opinion. Personally I think it's a big waste of time, but hey, if you have nothing better to do with your life, go ahead.

What I really want to point out is that the latest Angus Reid poll showing the Conservatives at 40% and the Liberals at 26%, has been called an online poll, and therefore everyone is saying it's not accurate, but it was an email poll, not an online poll. It's actually no worse than a phone poll. Here's some reasons why:

1. Most people will not take the time to answer a phone poll, those same people will not answer an email about a poll.

In my household, I love answering polls of all kinds, my hubby hates them, so when a polling firm calls, he hands the phone right to me. So, we are already biasing the poll, only a person predisposed to answering polls will agree, all others will say no and hang up.

2. I get all sorts of email invitations to answer polls, my name is on a whole list of polling firms, I even go to focus groups (mainly because they pay money). So, if I get an email asking me to participate in a poll, I am predisposed to do so, even though I don't know what the survey is about. This is the same thing that Angus Reid would have done, does it bias the survey? No more than a phone poll.

3. Email polls reach more people at a lower cost to the company.

Phone poll, you need people calling, email poll, all you need is an email address.

Now, just because I am Conservative, does that mean that I am more likely to answer either an email poll or a phone poll? Nope, I'm just predisposed to answering surveys.

So, a phone poll, or an email poll have their biases. Online polls are a totally different matter, they can be freeped, and therefore are not reliable.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Just caught your posting at freedominion re Harper maybe forwarding a bill to cancel the $1.75 per vote that each party gets. Totally agree, and of course it would hurt the Libs and BLOC the most, relatively speaking, even though it would obviously hurt the CPC the most in absolute dollar amounts. FYI, a couple of years ago, I caught Harper drop a suggestion along these lines, but haven't heard him mention it since. So he's thought about. But the trick is how and when to hurl that grenade into the opposition camps. It might be too narrow of an issue to go to the voters on. Or Harper may be waiting for a majority, which I think is more likely.

hunter said...

It would could be used as a "this is the final straw" Parliament isn't working, the opposition are greedy way to call the election, not a big election issue, but just one more nail to drive into the opposition.