Internet Polls

Examples of Internet Polls in the following topics:

• Telephone and Internet Polling

  • Internet and telephone polls are very useful as they are much cheaper than most other polls and are able to reach a wide population.
  • Online polls are becoming an essential research tool for a variety of research fields, including marketing and official statistics research.
  • Web polls are faster, simpler, and cheaper than many other polling methods.
  • An important aspect of telephone polling is the use of interviewers.
  • However, there are some disadvantages to telephone polling.

• Attempts to Improve Voter Turnout

  • If however they are forced to go to the polling place, they can still use a blank or invalid vote.
  • Compulsory voting is a system by which electors are obliged to vote in elections or attend a polling place on voting day.
  • If an eligible voter does not attend a polling place, he or she may be subject to punitive measures, such as fines, community service, or perhaps imprisonment if fines are unpaid or community service is not performed .
  • If however they are forced to go to the polling place, they still can use a blank or invalid vote.
  • Other methods of improving turnout include making voting easier through improved access to polls—for example, through:

• Types of Polls

  • A benchmark poll is generally the first poll taken in a campaign.
  • Brushfire polls are polls taken during the period between the benchmark and tracking polls.
  • An entrance poll is a poll that is taken before voters cast their votes.
  • Like all opinion polls, exit polls by nature do include a margin of error.
  • A straw poll or straw vote is a poll with nonbinding results.

• Additional Factors: Gender, Age, Religion, Race, and Ethnicity

  • New technology, especially the internet, is also making it easier for candidates to reach the youth.
  • Websites such as Facebook and YouTube not only allow students acquire information about the polls, but also allow them to share their excitement over the polls and candidates.
  • Poll taxes, literacy tests, and intimidation kept black voters from the polls.
  • However, Asian Americans who have been victims of hate crimes or consider themselves to be part of a deprived group find their way to the polls in greater numbers.
  • Much of the Christian right's power within the American political system is attributed to their extraordinary turnout rate at the polls.

• Early Public Opinion Research and Polling

  • The first known example of an opinion poll was an 1824 local straw poll by The Harrisburg Pennsylvanian for the Jackson Adams race.
  • The first known example of an opinion poll was a local straw poll conducted by The Harrisburg Pennsylvanian in 1824, showing Andrew Jackson leading John Quincy Adams by 335 votes to 169 in the contest for the United States Presidency.
  • The Literary Digest soon went out of business, while polling started to take off.
  • Elmo Roper was another American pioneer in political forecasting using scientific polls.
  • By the 1950s, various types of polling had spread to most democracies.

• The Gallup Organization

  • Gallup Inc. was founded in 1958, when George Gallup grouped all of his polling operations into one organization.
  • Gallup currently has four divisions: Gallup Poll, Gallup Consulting, Gallup University, and Gallup Press.
  • In 1958 the modern Gallup Organization was formed from a merger of several polling organizations.
  • The Gallup Poll is the division of Gallup that regularly conducts public opinion polls in more than 140 countries around the world.
  • For the 2008 U.S. presidential election, Gallup was rated 17th out of 23 polling organizations in terms of the precision of its pre-election polls relative to the final results.

• The Problems with Polls

  • A sample size of around 500 – 1,000 is a typical compromise for political polls .
  • Another way to reduce the margin of error is to rely on poll averages.
  • This method is based on the assumption that the procedure and sample size is similar enough between many different polls to justify creating a polling average.
  • A number of theories and mechanisms have been offered to explain erroneous polling results.
  • Since some people do not answer calls from strangers or refuse to answer the poll, poll samples may not be representative samples from a population due to a non-response bias.

• The Importance of Accuracy

  • The importance of accuracy may be illustrated through the example of the Literary Digest Roosevelt-Landon presidential election poll.
  • In 1936, the Digest conducted their presidential poll with 2.3 million voters, a huge sample size.
  • However, the sample turned out to be an inaccurate representation of the general population as those polled were generally more affluent Americans who tended to have Republican sympathies.
  • At the same time, George Gallup conducted a far smaller, but more scientifically based survey, in which he polled a more demographically representative sample.
  • Relevance of the survey information, quality of the data, and overcoming personal bias are integral to polling accuracy.

• Voting as Political Participation

  • Rock the Vote (RTV), a nonpartisan youth mobilization organization, established the first online voter registration initiative in 1992 with official backing from the Congressional Internet Caucus.
  • This painting from 1846 depicts a polling judge administering an oath to a voter.

• The Internet, Blogging, and Podcasting

  • The growth of the Internet and its associated technologies has made a profound impact on contemporary political campaigns.
  • The internet is now a core element of modern political campaigns.
  • Individual political candidates are also using the internet to promote their election campaign.
  • President Obama's campaign, depicted here, relied heavily on the use of the internet.
  • He used the internet to connect with his constituents and win votes.