Say "No" to Pollsters!: a HuffPost Call to Action
In 1996, Harry Shearer and I founded the Partnership for a Poll-Free America, a campaign urging people to hang up on the pollsters who are polluting our political environment by dominating media coverage, influencing election outcomes, and turning our political leaders into slavish followers.
We were able to get a few thousand people to take our Say No to Pollsters pledge but, at the time, the Huffington Post wasn't even a glimmer in my eye, and "going viral" was still something that required a visit to the doctor.
In the dozen years since then, the problems caused by polling have only gotten worse.
Today's political landscape is littered with media mavens who insist on treating polling results as if Moses just brought them down from the mountaintop. And reporters have become addicted to the ease of reporting the latest horse-race results as if they were actual news.
Look at the five days between Iowa and New Hampshire, when the political conversation (including here on HuffPost) was dominated by polls that turned out to be wildly inaccurate. USA Today had Obama up by 13 points just two days before he lost by three. A sixteen-point swing -- in 48 hours -- is, I trust, beyond the "margin or error." And please don't tell me it was the result of Hillary getting misty.
But even if they had been right, do we want our political debate dominated not by issues but by who is up and who is down, who is hot and who is not?
No wonder politicians have become pathological people pleasers, addicted to the short-term buzz of a bump in the polls, who can't even get dressed in the morning without consulting the latest numbers.
But we can't expect these polling junkies -- both in the media and those running for office -- to kick the habit on their own. We have to stage an intervention. And it's as easy as hanging up your phone. Response rates are already abysmally low -- often dropping below 25%. So if enough of us refuse to answer, the polling data will become so unrepresentative and unreliable even the media would have to admit it was useless.
So I'm asking you to sign our Say No to Pollsters petition.
It's fast, it's easy, and it can be very effective. In fact, if everyone who signs the petition also gets everyone they know in states with upcoming primaries to sign the petition too, it can have an immediate impact on the way the 2008 race is reported on and run.
By just saying "No" to pollsters any time they call, we can force our leaders -- and the reporters who cover them -- to start thinking for themselves again. Starting here. Starting now.
So sign the petition and Say "No" to Pollsters! And send it to everyone you know in Nevada, Michigan, South Carolina, and Florida. Remember: Friends Don't Let Friends Talk to Pollsters!
Follow Arianna Huffington on Twitter: www.twitter.com/ariannahuff
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I have tried three approaches: (1) Give false answers; (2) yell at the pollsters or tell them to wait returning 10 minutes later; and (3) not answer the telephone, unless the caller ID shows a name that we know, thus relying on the good sense of our friends and relatives to leave messages. The last is by far the most satisfying. I recommend it highly. There is peace to be had by unplugging the phone. It is only going to get worse during the next 10 months
This is ridiculous. I'm a big Arianna fan, but she seems to have some deep-seated fear of error in polls. On Left Right and Center awhile ago she was shocked when Frank Newport of Gallup told her that poll results have statistical uncertainty. Hello?... I thought they taught science at Cambridge? Polls are just measurements. ALL measurements have statistical AND systematic uncertainty. Even elections themselves are just polls. They attempt to measure what the sum of all registered voters want.
If estimates of systematic uncertainties (like people being undecided) are not mentioned by pollsters, that is their fault. If pollsters do not provide sample sizes, non-compliance rates, and the exact wording of the questions they use; that is also their fault. But not being scientifically literate enough to interpret poll results is the media's fault. Being dumb enough to think poll results predict elections is the media's (and the readers') fault. Did most journalists fail science in school, or what?
This reminds me of medical reporting where some study finds that a chemical in food X ameliorates disease Y but that eating X is not recommended as a therapy for Y by physicians. Then a bunch of idiots who want to cure Y start eating X. Or worse, the media do not even mention the part of the original study which says not to use it as treatment.
Pollsters are doing a public service...in NH either Diebold or racism play a part. There is no way i will believe there was a 14% swing overnite! Particularly, with exit polls still favoring OBAMA. Look at Kucinich! Pollsters continue polling you are oour only gauge.
sorry Arianna
el gallo, independent
wow, liberals shoot themselves in the foot again with a badly thought out plan. here's what will happen, since only liberals are going to refuse pollsters, the polls will be skewed toward the republicans. do you really think hanging up is going to prevent FAUX news from reporting a skewed poll?! then the 20% of voters who follow the majority will go and vote republican. brilliant! how do we keep coming up with these bad self-destructive ideas like the ridiculously toothless "don't buy gas for one day" idea. i went to a Move On demonstration once against the attempt to end filibusters as a way to stop the appointment of more Right wing judges. the guy in charge of making the placards for the event thought sarcasm was a good approach - so the thousands of people that drove past saw a crowd of people holding up signs that said in big letters "MORE RIGHT WING JUDGES!" I had made my own sign and a group of us moved to a place where we could actually interact with people at red lights, a woman in tears thought we were a tiny counterprotest to a huge pro-right wing judge demonstration. when will we liberals get it through our heads the whole world doesn't revolve around out hip urban bubble and learn to come up with better ideas that include the people we need to reach?
Please, what we NEED is a return to paper balloting so these electronic machines CANNOT be programmed to have percentages of the votes switched. Nearly every cash register in the United States can produce a receipt, a duplicate, and a backup roll within the machine. It should not take either billions of dollars nor years to have these machines ready for voters. Use the continuous roll within for the first count, one of the receipts for the aftercount or to verify results if necessary, and one for the voter to retain so they can write in to the courts or whoever needs still more verification. Our votes have been tampered with since ronnie raygun's "mandate from the people". Poor old thing was so far out of it with Alzheimer's when he was "re-elected" that if he had any idea what was going on, it was fragmented and had no connection with reality.
P.J. O'Rourke on Bill Maher was hysterical. His deadpan delivery of how the Iowans lie to pollsters was LOL
now that is funny because that is sadly the truth of it. i mean like the tone in a movie or a film alot of politicians have to "go to the polls" to see what the "public" thinks. it's interesting to see how the media is calling obama "the change" when in fact i am thinking that hillary is "the change". it's truly amazing that an afro-american male and a female are running for president, too bad that hillary and obama couldn't just team up and have this election be a slam dunk that would be the ultimate election ballot.
i don't think that all people know about the voting polls and honestly do you really think the public truly knows all of either parties platform?!?!!? i mean not everyone in the world has web access nor goes out and "reads up/researches" their potential chosen candidate ya know!?!?!
i mean alot of people actually believe what's in the f*cking news and what is on the television in those campaign ads. it's sad but i am in agreement with you arianna, alot of the people do sound like sheep but doesn't that mean that those ad campaigns are working!!! the polls may show obama ahead in NH but see what happened in those 48 hours, hillary kicked some NH ass!! i am indifferent to the polls and i can see how annoying as some of the calls can be but you have to admit that any campaign should not even for a second take the polls as gospel, that would be detrimental to a candidates election. there is too much margin for error as NH proves. so, in a sense it's a good idea to form an opinion but not necessarily a great way to use them as the way an election might turn out. hillary has a solid campaign format and i like alot of what obama stands for but to me i think hillary might win this because she has the mentality like a race horse. "in it for the long haul".
Oh please. Like this is going to stop the pollsters??? HA!
Where are those big billboards with neo-con slogans on them??
While I do agree that we should say no to pollsters. A big part of the problem these days is also political punditry. All the pundits looked like the fools they are concerning how wrong they were about NH.
People really need to start thing for themselves, and belive what they see with their own eyes, and hear with their own ears.
I had this idea back in 2000 right after the election night. But as I thought about I realized I was taking the wrong and a dangerous lesson from that event. I remember Fla. was called for Gore based on exit polls earlier in the evening. Bush was asked about it an he calmly replied he was sure he would win Fla. Then for the first time in my life the prediction proved to be wrong. Later I learned that this sort of discrepancy if statistically significant was a recognized tool to point to elections that were tampered with. I dont think there is any other way to as effectively monitor an election. Dont throw out the baby with the bath water. Many polls are worthless but properly conducted polls on election day are the only way to counter various types of fraud and tampering. Proper exit polls should be treated with more not less respect. You are being conditioned to accept a theft of the election in 2008. All of the Democratic candidates should be pursuing the NH discrepancies. What is the chance that the difference between Diebold and hand counting was due to chance? If the democrats dont push this now they will have to be silent in Nov. If a similar pattern shows up what will the candidate or Huff Post be able to say.
Don't say "no" to exit-pollsters after you vote though. they are one of the best safeguards against election fraud. Even though nothing was done when Kerry was winning many states in exit polls but lost them in the end somehow.
it's not about the polls
it's about the vote counting!!
Thank You Arianna! Excellent idea. I'm from NH.
Every 4 years we brace for what we call "The Invasions". This year it was worse than I have ever seen, and I am 62 years old. It wasn't only an invasion - it was a hostile occupation, with the National Media being the most intrusive, abrasive, demanding and any other negative you can think of.
The Media was THE major problem this time. They followed you in the stores - they staked out parking lots, they even tried to follow you home. And thank God, for caller ID - the phone just never stopped ringing. Hillary and Obama didn't need protection -The residents of NH needed almost one on one protection!
Eliminating Polling would at least keep these vultures in the Nashua/Manchester area so the rest of us could live some semblence of a normal life.
Arianna, if you and some other stellar news people didn't exist, I would willingly sign a petition to have ALL members of the National Media jailed during the 2 months prior to the 2012 election. My feelings have not abated at all toward Bill O'Liely, Timmeh Russert, and Tweety - Lord, do they take psych tests for being the most obnoxious to get their jobs?
Gladly signed your brilliant petiton - and Arianna - A Sincere Thank You from my bruised heart and body!
POLLS WERE VERY IMPORTANT IN NEW HAMPSHIRE...IF NOT TO SHOW US THE HUGE DISCREPANCY WITH THE RESULTS AND MAKE US WONDER ABOUT
FRAUD!
Rather than hanging up on pollsters, it would behoove the purveyors of poll results, including HuffPo, to examine exactly what the pollsters are asking and who the pollsters are polling instead of running to print (or post) every set of figures, no matter how nonsensical. I do not see a promise by HuffPo to refrain from this sort of behavior.
their data already is irrelevant!!!
I don't know one person who would take the time to talk with any pollster.
The media will never acknowledge this true because then they would have no sensational material ... oh, unless Britney decides to drive to the gas station.
CNN et al should accept the fact that they are just tabloids at this point and stick to reporting all the celeb babies born at Cedars yesterday.
Maybe they should interview Dr. Phil
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