Should I be filling out every political poll I’m sent?
This is something I’ve been wondering for a year or so now… If political polls (US specific ones in my case) and surveys are a significant way our politicians are deciding what they should support or what the media decides to talk about should I be filling out surveys I’m spam texted during election season?
If so, should I fill out every single one? Half of them? Only the ones that I don’t feel are politically biased? Or maybe, especially the ones that are biased to try and somehow counteract the bias?
What do you all do?
Is there a list of “official polls” that I should seek out if they don’t decide to text me about it?
Is spending time filling out every single one justified, or am I just inviting more text spam by not blocking and moving on?
I do them on occasion. The last one was a hit job sort: "would you change your opinion about state senator (D) if you knew he supported releasing violent criminals into the street without bail endangering the lives of you and your family" and "would you change your opinion if you knew he supported teaching kindergartner children about sex!" And the like. I said all of them made me more likely to vote for him, because fuck that poll and also I agree with the underlying actual positions being described (comprehensive sex education and our bail elimination act) so yeah, I didn't know him much before but I like him EVEN BETTER now.
But I figure it's worth my time most of the time to spend a few minutes and do that.
Wow, there's no campaign rules against that sorta thing?! Folks can just robo call lies and dress them up as "would you still vote for [opponent] if they committed [atrocity]?"
Usually no, but there are some jurisdictions with laws. New Hampshire for example has specific push polling legislation that requires that such calls be clearly identified as political ads. So does Maine.
It was a text message and online poll so no robocalls. Idk the campaign rules about those.
Also to be clear, they're framing actual laws - passing comprehensive sex education - as "teaching kindergartners about sex" and the bail reform law will technically release "violent criminals".
But both are good laws. They're just very negative framing.
I think at least in some cases they are actually polling to compare possible lines they plan to use in attack ads. It still feels weird to be made part of.
Yeah but I'm happy to tell them their attack ad ideas are stupid in this case.
I'm guessing you're in Illinois. Sounds like the typical fare being fed to those on the other side here.
Absolutely correct, and bonus, I just moved from a Dem Rep to a GOP one by moving to a small town.
So yay.
But I'm a supporter of the SAFE-T act and comprehensive sex education so I don't mind screwing with a "poll"
I'm always willing to fill out a political poll. The problem I have run into is it feels like every "poll" I get is just a donation campaign. I've made some decent donations to campaigns this election season and I feel like all I get is more donation requests primarily disguised as polls.
That’s a major reason I don’t donate. It marks you as a sucker who is willing to donate and opens the floodgates for spam.
Absolutely. Also, I cannot remember the last time I wanted a particular candidate to win (that wasn't a local election.) At the national level, I don't care about any of my options. I'll vote every time, but I'll be damned if I give any of those ghouls my cash.
It’s been reported that a major reason Biden made the decision to drop out of the race was because the inner circle of the campaign received internal polling results from the battleground states which showed it to be hopeless.
So, a few thousand people in PA, OH, AZ, WI shifted the course of history, no matter how it ends up, even though they never knew it, and probably never will (internal polls tend to obfuscate that they’re from campaigns).
That’s to speak of the power of polling.
OH isn't really a battleground state anymore... it's been pretty consistently red lately. It's certainly not a battleground state in the same way as the others you cite.
This is tough, because of the sheer volume of texts I'm receiving. I try to only participate in reputable pols, not any text I receive. The sheer amount of polling we see through direct contact is definitely a money grab in some cases and I'm not interested in being harvested for cash. I want to answer the questions of reputable pollsters, so they can provide valuable data.
What method do you use, or what signs do you look for to decide if a poll is reputable? I'm 100% with you in that I have no desire to be "harvested for cash," but my struggle is that determination proccess of which category a form would fall into that I'd love to get other's input on.
The reputable pollsters market themselves clearly in the text/call/email and don't ask for political donations. To that point, you wouldn't get polled by them frequently. Big red flag is any poll with any pro/anti political rhetoric.
The only polls I fill in are ones sent by my local council/government about what actions they should take - I don't see the value in engaging in polls sent by organisations if they're not going to actually fix those things.
I much prefer to email my local representative about any concerns I have instead.
Emailing my representive feels like shouting into the void to me. Though I will admit I haven't tried that with any frequency that to counteract that. An additional wrinkle for email directly, is that I work somewhat closely with the family of my representive, and have rather different political leanings from them, but that's more of a personal issue for me to get over I suppose.
That's fair. If you feel like polls contribute more than writing, then I'd say stick to doing the polls that you care most about, rather that trying to care about everything. It's not possible to care about everything, you'll just get burned out and jaded... I've been there
Playing devil’s advocate: suppose every issue had good, representative polling. Then you’d essentially be living in a direct democracy where citizens vote on every issue. Those who defend the representative system will say that sometimes unpopular decisions need to be made, or that the public can’t be expected to make a good decision - the judgment of the public should come after the fact.
(I also fear that with perfect information, parties would maximize to get the slimmest margin of victory possible so they can push the most unpopular agenda they can. Well arguably this is already the world we live in)
In the context of Biden’s withdrawal, the strong point of polls might be that a better candidate could be selected. But the weak point might be that the public can’t be expected to know the process of replacing him or predict his replacement. Instead you might want to keep the parties guessing and punish them the ones that can’t make wise decisions.