Just Say No...To Pollsters

In the wake of the "stunning" failure of public-opinion polls to predict accurately the result of the Democratic New Hampshire primary, perhaps it's appropriate to revive a cause Ms. Huffington and I championed, about a decade ago: boycotting polls.

Whether you look at the entertainment industry or the news business or our political culture, it's hard to see a beneficial effect that the ubiquitousness of this technology has had on our society. Cooperating with pollsters, and giving them more and more detailed information about ourselves, has at the very least abetted the rampant slicing and dicing of the population, the divisiveness which so many now bemoan. And certainly the incurable obsession of the MSM with the horse-race aspect of our presidential elections -- clearly on view today -- is fed, if not led, by the incessant drumbeat of daily polls, nightly tracking polls, exit polls, etc.

So what can one person do? Refuse to talk to pollsters, ever, anywhere, for any reason. You know now, after having heard the expressions of interest in your call from a million telephone-tree voices, that they don't care about what you think. They're just trying to find a new, better, more effective way of selling you a show, a product, a leader. So give it up. Go cold turkey. If you're approached at a voting location, tell 'em your ballot was secret and it's going to stay that way. If you're called, treat 'em like telemarketers -- pollsters are, in fact, the other end of the same slimy stick.

Arianna reported some time ago that conflation with telemarketers (they all call at dinnertime) was driving response rates down, thus compromising the accuracy of "random" samples. Let's finish the job. It doesn't take everybody to do this. Depriving pollsters of a certain cohort of the population -- like, say, readers of left-leaning blogs -- is enough.

And it's something you can actually do, by not doing.

Will it hurt? Can't say for sure, but, hey, it couldn't help.
UPDATE (1-10): To the commenters claiming that exit polls are a necessary corrective for a fraudulent vote, two things: one, this piece from the Daily Kos, which seems to invalidate the notion of vote-tampering in New Hampshire (http://dhinmi.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/1/10/02623/2264/85/434176),
and two: so that's why Gore and Kerry ended up winning? Using a flawed technology as a corrective for an allegedly flawed vote is like using a psychic to catch an embezzler.

Comments

[siri2k]

Ya know, I like this quote from Archie Bunker. When Meathead asked him one time, "Who'd ya vote for?", Archie responded "People have died in wars so that I don't have to answer that question."

hehehe
legitgov.orgv.org
www.legitgov.org

[The Hedonistic Pleasureseeker]

Downthread somewhere I read:

"Going purely on hand-counts, Ron Paul would have won 15% of the vote and finished third. This figure would have more accurately correlated to the pre-primary polls rather than the ridiculous 8% he was eventually given.
Rudy Giuliani, the 9/11 candidate who beat Ron Paul thanks to the aid of a 3% swing on Diebold voting machines, received 9.11% of the vote in three different towns. Coincidence or somebody's idea of a sick joke?"

AND PEOPLE THINK THE POLLS ARE THE PROBLELM? If it weren't for the polls we'd never know how badly we were just screwed over! What is WRONG with some of you? Too much fluoride in your water making you placid?

If this issue gets swept under the rug that's it: I'm not voting. Why bother? This government has decided my opinion is irrelevant and won't count it anyway.

[hontonoshijin]

Mr. Shearer, you pissed me off ten years ago or so in New Orleans by condescending to me at the Faulkner Conference. I assumed you were another blowhard entertainer who thought he was better than the people around him.

But I admire the good sense and the passion of your blogs, as well as your love of that fine city and its people. Maybe I was wrong.

[jackstraw005]

someone mentioned it above but i will say it anyhow. LIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!! i love being as creative as possible with people asking me about things that are none of their business. so i lie. call me what you will its fun.

[Janelynne]

Harry, you are brilliant. Just say no, or lie to the pollsters. Tea leaf statistics, the polls are just another "he said, she said" ploy by lobbiests to hammer the voters. There is a poll every five minutes that is shaped to lead the so-called news story. The results, of course, are exactly the results that were sought by those who paid for them. Garbage in, garbage out.

[Tortillas]

Everyone wants to say they called the whole race after a couple of tiny Primaries. Pundits can be so tiresome. Lighten up buttercup!

Re-direct your frustrations with politics by engaging Americas true grass-roots candidates. While the media tries to figure out why their speculation and guess-work doesn't yield results, Arizona is quietly making a bold political statement.

Which candidate cut a hole in the America flag while illegal aliens cross our border in the background?

Which candidate wears an eye-patch like a pirate?

And, did you know there are THREE women in Arizona's Primary ballot?

http://projectwhitehouse.wordpress.com/

Arizona has produced a slew of candidates for the highest office in the nation. That's right, more candidates to choose from. While the country and its political pundits are focused on tiny East Coast states, some ten Republicans and fifteen new Democratic candidates will appear in the Arizona Primary ballot this February. An effort sponsored by The Tucson Weekly, an Arizona alternative newspaper, has opened the gates for a stable of dark-horse candidates.

As with all politics the sparks are already flying. Candidate Sean "CF" Murphy responds to a political ad filed by Democratic candidate Doctress Neutopia in which she desecrates the American flag by cutting a hole in it. Follow the antics of America's grass-roots candidates by tuning in to the campaigns blog.

http://projectwhitehouse.wordpress.com/

[talkstocoyotes]

One word (oops, make that two): answering machine. As often as not, they just hang up without even trying.

[LeonBNJ]

I have refused to answer any polls or telemarketers calls for many years. Usually I hang up after the first words when I recognize it is such a call. I find such calls an invasion of my privacy and annoying. Perhaps if enough people do such actions, maybe we will chase off the junk callers.

[GregQuindel]

So, if left leaning Americans will just hang-up on pollsters the country can seem even more conservative then it actually is...brilliant.

[janmB]

I don't see the good in POLLS.
Its so the MEDIA can enjoy a frenzy in beating up a contender.

[zull2]

While polls frequently mislead people, this case points to something entirely different. They polled and polled New Hampshire, and polled it some more. There was a very consistent outcome. Then, suddenly, they're all wrong?

Part of this is because New Hampshire is notoriously fickle about making a choice before election day. They tend towards being independents, and are frequently changing their opinions on election day.

There's also a curious phenomenon going on involving the voting process itself...where you had paper ballots, Obama won. Where you had Diebold voting machines, Clinton won. You have a Governor and Lt. Governor that endorsed Clinton well before the elections. Clinton spent an inordinate amount of time, comparatively, in NH than the other frontrunners.

There's also the silly "crying" thing. IF that is the reason she won NH, then it's a one-hit wonder. You can't start bawling that you're losing or that the "stress is just too much" on the morning of election day for every caucus in every state.

I agree though that polls have a deliberate effect on certain voters that tend to vote along with the crowd. However, what they can be used to do is to spot potential election fraud, and that is useful...because otherwise, it's doubtful that we'd ever even notice. At least what polls can do is draw attention so an investigation can be initiated.

[Franciscodeflores]

The pollsters are going to continue to have difficulty because they may be running into the same problem that they had in the Truman/Dewey race in 1948. Many voters just didn't have phones. Now, many voters don't have any land line. Thay only have cell phones.

[ParacleteofKavorka]

Tonight Stewart had Zogby on to discuss Hillary's win. Stewart was nailing him and all he could do was chortle. These guys (pollsters, not Stewart) are messing with our democracy and they laugh about it. Lie to them and pass it on. New Hampshire was just a start.

[research]

Zogby just told John Stewart he has to call 6000 phones to get 900 poll takers.

[D54inMemphis]

Don't just boycott, lie!

Refusing a pollster just incrementally increases their cost by making them ask someone else. If you lie plausibly, they can't correct for it by asking more people. This increases their error margin and reduces the value of their product. It will put them out of business much faster then a mere boycott.