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.
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I feel left out... I've never had a call from a polling company. And I'd just love to try on them all the tactics I use with the telematketers!
You and Arianna may have proposed boycotting polls, but Arianna long ago gave up on staying true to her word--
http://www.mydd.com/story/2007/5/29/1247/45090
I somehow ended up on the list of persons to call for polls until I learned to say "I may or may not lie to you." Then did... or didn't. Anyway, they stopped pestering me for my opinion.
Terrific idea, Mr. Shearer!
Polling is just worthless marketing, part a self-re-inforcing cycle of news creating news.
Its primary value seems to be in generating revenue for media outlets, campaign consultants, pollsters, think tankers, pundits and various other forms of parasitic political fauna.
If we refuse to play along, we can jam a sock in one of the megaphones that keep drowning out any political conversation of substance or relevance.
Don't co-operate with polling!
Harry, after the massive, 20 story, face plant the Pollsters took in New Hampshire is boycotting them even necessary?
I never get called anyway (I guess they know better), but even so the entire Polling industry has egg on its face. We can boycott, sure, but with every talking head on the boob tube looking slack jawed and dumbfounded, muttering to themselves ...
"The Polls ... wha .. um ... what happened to the Polls?"
For millions of people to see? Hell, it will be years before the pollsters gain back the public's trust.
Sure, I'll follow your lead, but it may be beating a dead horse at this point.
For a woman who has been against polls for 10 years, she sure allowed tons of headlines touting positive polls for Obama on a website she runs and which carries her name. She knows polls help mold peoples' minds, so I don't think including her in your war against polls is accurate. At least not anymore.
I'm sure you're against polls, but I think it must be pointed out that Arianna most certainly doesn't fall in the category you suggest.
I have been a "poll liar" for about two decades. Around the time that there was an explosion of polls, and an explosion in the number of annoying phone calls and people approaching to ask questions.
It seems to have also coincided with the explosion of celebrity driven gossip publications and similar shows.
Suddenly, there seemed to be this demand to know everything about everyone, and I didn't like it.
I could do the nice thing and tell them that I'm not interested in participating, but who's to say that they'll be equally as polite and not call me again?
Lie to pollsters, and never believe the bilge they put out. Ever.
Good idea. Let's come to think of pollsters the same way we think of telemarketers. Selling a product, misusing our time.
Without polls, what will we do? No more hyperbole from Chris Matthews, no more pseudo psycho-analysis from Zogby (and I like Zogby)—and maybe no more second guessing, voter manipulation, and candidate overconfidence.
Sounds good to me.
-+About 4 hours ago I had a conversation with my son about this topic. I agree completely. Polling serves no useful purpose and may cause a great deal of damage. I for one agree that we should refuse to talk with pollsters. I'd like to believe if enough of us do that these people might try to do something useful with their talents.
We should boycott pollsters, and we should boycott polls - especially the polls presented on the nightly news programs as though they were news. It must be a lot cheaper to conduct an inane poll than to do actual reporting. Or even inane reporting, like on cable news networks. I think polls flatter viewers by making them feel personally involved in the story.
Today is the day after the New Hampshire primary, and all the press has been talking about is themselves - there's egg on our face! How did we get it wrong! It's all about the press, don't you know.
Check the number of READERS of stories reporting poll results, and you'll see why there are so many, why they are so pervasive, and why the MSM plays them up. If people really didn't like polls, then they would STOP READING THEM! Not likely, eh? Well, who's fault is that?
on may 4 1990 ie almost 18 years ago , POLLOCRACY was COINED TO MAKE PEOPLE AWARE OF THIS POLITICAL PHENOMENON.
PLEASE READ WWW.POLLOCRACY.COM
POLLOCRATS are pollsters with a political agenda.
THERE SHOULD BE A STOP PUT TO ALL POLL NUMBER ANNOUNCEMENTS 48 HOURS BEFORE ANY ELECTION.
I don't respond to pollsters because I don't know who pays them or who they're going to spin the results. But I agree with Steve about exit polls. I used to disparage them as an attempt to call elections before we in California had even finished voting, but since 2000 I have flip-flopped and pay attention. Which probably means the Repugs will find a way to use them to their advantage, maybe by faking them.
Well, I guess it means we have to go to a number of sources for our information, and what percentage of the electorate has the time or mental energy for that?
I am thinking about EXIT POLLS.
I am thinking they are NEEDED to verify the results at each polling place.
I am WISHING that there were a way to VERIFY the result of the voting process that uses those electronic voting machines.
While I do agree that polls are egregiously abused, it is instructive, perhaps, to recall that it was an *exit poll* which drew the fairness of the ballot counting into question and sparked the downfall of Viktor Yanukovych in the Ukraine a bit more than four years ago.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4031127.stm
"With about 75% of the votes counted, the pro-Russian Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych is officially just over 1% ahead of his rival Viktor Yushchenko.
"Mr Yushchenko's supporters say they do not believe the official turnout figure of 96% in eastern Ukraine.
"Exit polls had shown Mr Yushchenko, a pro-Western liberal, in the lead."
If memory serves, the Ohio exit polls in 2004 and the Florida exit polls in 2000 were significantly at odd with the ballot box results.
Just something to ponder as you slam down the receiver or flip off that reporter as you leave the polling place this coming election season.
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