WaPo Facilitates Push Polling, Again.

Well. Can't get the American people off the subject of torture? Build a strawman. Instead of discussing whether or not Bush/Cheney were correct in their tactics, argue about who knew what, when (specifically, Speaker Pelosi). Don't like the results of the polls that say most of the American people want prosecution of those who tortured and those who approved the torture? Change the polls.

Resurgent Republic who I don't want to link to, just add the dot com yourself, has established itself as a new player in the Washington polling game. Building on the success of push polling in the 2000 election cycle, they are a group of hardcore Republicans including Hayley Barbour, Mary Matalin, and others, who seek to reframe the torture debate by returning to the use of 'enhanced interrogation' and once again providing stenography services to the mainstream media. Chris Cilliza at the Washington Post The Fix disappointingly wrote extensively of these latest poll results - claiming 53% overall felt such tactics were justified compared to 34% - without bothering to discuss the actual poll itself.

Remember, poll results are useless unless you know 1) who was polled, 2) how many were polled, and 3) the questions asked.

Consider this question.

"Congressman A says America should never use harsh interrogation techniques on detainees, because they are torture. Those techniques undermine our values, hurt our standing in the world, endanger American troops who might be taken prisoner, and yield little or no useful information that could not be obtained by other means."

"Congressman B says that, while harsh interrogation techniques of detainees should be used only rarely, they may be necessary in exceptional situations to protect the country. Those techniques are justified when they are the only way to stop the murder of another 3000 innocent Americans in another 9/11."

The first part includes the word torture. The question uses inflammatory, negative terms - undermine, hurt, endanger troops, and then goes on to tell us that they 'yield little or not useful information.'

The second part does not use the word torture. It uses words that are not inflammatory but uses words meant to make us feel good - exceptional, protect, justified, innocent, and then appeals to our emotions by referencing the lives lost on 9/11.

This is called push-polling. You are presented with 2 choices - good or bad, right or wrong that appeal to your emotions. The question is framed so that there is only one possible "right" answer if you are not a monster. Neither address the issue at hand, that being: various elected officials including Dick Cheney have acknowledged that the used of torture, sometimes called enhanced interrogation to make us feel better about it, was used. Do you believe that investigations should occur into who is responsible? Or, something along those lines.

The group at Resurgent Republican are long-term Washington insiders, experienced campaigners and experienced pollsters. They know how to write a poll to get the results they want, knowing full well that people tend to follow the polls. People don't like to take a stand on their own. If they think most of the country believes in something, they are more likely to believe that as well. If they've been uncertain, a well-designed push-poll will push them write over the edge. The above question is one used in the poll Cilliza cites and is the least toxic.

A 'good' polling question is a simple statement, usually based on something in the news that the subject is likely to know about, and is written in a way that does not appeal to the subject's emotions. Loaded words are never used in a properly prepared poll unless - as in Cheney's use of enhanced interrogation - you have a pre-determined result to achieve and must design a poll to elicit the answers that you seek.

The media, again, is not doing its job when it simply reports the results of a poll like this without questioning the methodology. The only information Cilliza included in his article is that the poll included "critically independent" voters. But how many people were polled? Where were they from? How were they selected? What stratification process (if any) was used? Remember - percentages are meaningless numbers if you don't know how large a sample was used. Sixty percent of 5 people is still 3.

Once again, the mainstream media perpetuating the serial stupidity of our fellow citizens as they swallow unquestioningly what the Republican Party wants fed to them.

Thanks for stopping by. Come back soon.
k

What You Should Know About Polling

MSNBC is running a Live Vote asking "Should the motto 'In God We Trust' be removed from U.S. currency?" If you want to participate, the poll is here.

As of a few minutes ago, 13% say that Yes, it is a violation of the principle of the separation of church and state, and 87% say that No, the motto has historical and patriotic significance and does nothing to establish a state religion.

These results, and others like them, will of course provide fodder for the likes of Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, and others who will wave the flag and the Constitution when it supports their cause, and wave poll numbers such as these when they do not.

Polls are tricky things and even the "pollsters" hired by news organizations to explain them to us do so in such a way as to present the picture that they are hired to present. There are several kinds of polls, and several ways to gather and present data.

Probably the most important thing to know about polling, is that web polls (Live Votes) like the one currently on MSNBC or the ones frequently offered on local news stations (mine frequently asks me to call or go online and vote yes or no to an open-ended or specious question) are never accurate and may be fun or interesting, but offer no valid or reliable information.

Statistically, results to be at all useful, must be reliable and valid. A scientifically designed experiment - including a poll - is repeatable. Repeatable means that if done over and over again under the same conditions, the same results with minimal changes will occur.

If a test is valid, it means that the answers reached, are correct. You might design a test (poll) that achieves the same results over and over again, but with the wrong answer, over and over again. For example, during the Clinton/Lewinsky scandal, MSNBC had another Live Vote with 200,000 participating. That poll found that 73% felt that Clinton should resign, however, an NBC News/WSJ poll discovered that only 34% of 2,000 felt the same way. (information available through the same link as above).

If you knew nothing about polling, you would have no way of knowing which poll to believe. The Wall Street Journal is considered a fairly conservative publication while MSNBC is considered more liberal, or at least more neutral, so perhaps your politics might guide you. You might decide based on past history of polling results as the best indicator of future performance is past history, or, you might decide which you believed based on the reporter you were listening to or whether or not you liked Clinton or which party you belonged to.

What is interesting about this particular Clinton poll, is that news organizations and political pundits talked to each other more than people outside the beltway. They payed attention to polls like MSNBC's Live Vote because it validated their own opinion. Much of what happened during that time was driven by those in Washington believing that the scandal was a big deal while most of the rest of the country did not.

Anyway, back to polling. If a test is reliable, it means that the results will be the same each time the instrument is used. In the case of a poll, if opinions have changed, the results will change, but if used correctly with a properly drawn sample, the results will be valid. In the case of a political poll, a reliable poll will accurately reflect the opinions of the people being polled.

A poll can be reliable but invalid, but it can never be unreliable and valid. Or in other words, a poll can have well-written questions that elicit good answers, but poorly written questions can never reliably elicit accurate answers.

There are several kinds of polls, and if anyone is interested in more information about the specifics, just write me a comment and I'd be happy to write another post (or write me a comment about anything you'd like me to go into more depth about). What is most important to understand though, are 3 things.

1) A poll that you participate in on your own is virtually meaningless. People who respond to requests to participate whether it's an internet poll or a request to call and vote usually have strong feelings about the issue. If you don't care, you are unlikely to bother to vote.

2) Polls that are valid are conducted using a carefully drawn sample. There is a very scientific method governing how people are selected to participate so that the sample is representative of the population being studied - gender, race, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, geographic location, etc. A poll is more valid if it contains at least 500 people, but is usually no more valid if it contains more than 1,500. There are several ways to design the sample and it depends on the kind of poll and the purpose of the poll. People get degrees on this.

3) Most polling is done by telephone for fairly obvious reasons. In the past, there were flaws in this as whole segments of the population were left out as not everyone had a telephone, or people were on party-lines (not too long ago, rural areas had fewer telephone lines and people had to share them). Then, who was home to answer the phone? During the day, it was typically the woman until more and more two-income families. Calls shifted to the dinner hour, which created more people unwilling to participate. The advent of answering machines and caller ID became a factor, and most recently, more and more people use their cell phones as their primary or only telephone - and cell phone numbers are unlisted. So, designing an accurate poll becomes very difficult.

The results - at least for political pollsters - is that they poll the people they can reach. The registered party members. They use online polling which attracts people who already have a strong opinion.

Unethical pollsters use push-polling, leading questions, poorly drawn samples, small samples (40% of the people polled said .... is meaningless if they polled 10 people). Remember, how many people did they poll, who were they, what questions did they ask, and how did they ask them?

Thanks for stopping by. Come back soon.
k