[Futurework] Online polls can be deceiving

[Karen Watters Cole]

Greetings from a foggy Pacific Northwest today.  I am reminded that my cousin’s wife emailed me four times over several weeks this fall begging me to vote for a hometown favorite, a personal friend’s adult son, in the NBC Today Show’s musical star search promotion, where online votes determined who continued on in competition and who was eliminated.  Obviously, those with network connections fared better than those who did not, and it was not really surprising that the (female) black vocalists were eliminated before the white (male) vocalists.  My college roomies were voice majors and I still have a good ear.  They were singing karaoke style to canned music and one of the judges was Miss Piggy, so these were not future opera stars.  But the prize was real. I hope this illustration makes my point that not all polling is reliable, as Bill Ward can no doubt elaborate, but the public can be widely deceived, as Tom Walker has elaborated.  - Karen Watters Cole   Jan. 14 - Poll:  Bush approval at post-9/11 Low – domestic concerns contribute to new 58% rating, down 5 points from last week. http://www.msnbc.com/news/859045.asp?0cv=CB10   Excerpt:  “He is more vulnerable on the question of whether he understands the problems of ordinary Americans.  People were evenly split on the question of whether he is out of touch with the problems people face in their daily lives. Six in 10 said he’s paying enough attention to the war on terrorism and almost that many, 55 percent, said he’s not paying enough attention to the economy. More than half, 56 percent, said he favors the rich, while about a quarter said he favors the middle class. When asked which issues would be most important in their vote for president in 2004 would be most important, 52 percent said economic conditions and 32 percent said terrorism. A third said they would definitely vote to re-elect him, a third said they might or might not vote for him and a third said they would not. The poll of 1,002 adults was taken Jan. 10-12 and has an error margin of plus or minus 3 percentage points. Poll: Online survey users skew GOP Republicans twice as likely as Democrats to respond ASSOCIATED PRESS   WASHINGTON, Jan. 5 — Republicans are far more likely than Democrats to participate in online surveys, according to a poll that found a modest growth in the number of people using the Internet to get campaign news.  Among those who go online to catch up on politics, almost half of Republicans, 46 percent, said they like to register their opinions in online surveys.   Fewer than three in 10 Democrats, 28 percent, said they like to participate in the online surveys, according to the poll by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, in cooperation with the Pew Internet and American Life Project.    Half of those who said they like to take online polls were Republicans while one in five were Democrats and one in four were independents.  With Republicans more likely than Democrats to go online for political news, that tilts the makeup of those online survey respondents heavily toward the GOP. Ties To Networks’ Web Sites Such online surveys are used to spark interest in use of Web sites both by the major television networks and by political Web sites.  Representatives of the scientific polling industry often complain that the profusion of online surveys can confuse people about actual public opinion.  The online surveys simply show how many people logged in to the Web site and sent a response. The percentage of Internet users who went online for election news in 2002 was 22 percent, up slightly from 15 percent in 1988, the year of the last midterm congressional election.  Television news remains the primary source of election information for the overall population and among Internet users. http://www.msnbc.com/news/855213.asp?0bl=-0   Outgoing mail scanned by NAV 2002