Senate Candidate Wants to Ban Polling

Masker writes "This is just too funny. Alan Keyes, the Republican candidate for Senate in Illinois, who is running against Democrat Barack Obama, wants to ban political polling for 'a certain period' before the election, since such polls are 'manipulative and degrading and damaging to our political system.' Could his opinion be influenced by a recent poll that shows Keyes trails by 45 percentage points behind Obama?" Could be. But it could also be influenced by the fact that polls are often wrong; they influence how people vote (people are less likely to vote for someone who "doesn't have a chance"), and polls get reported on more than issues, which can't be good for anyone except the pollsters and whoever happens to be leading the polls.

Comments

polls are often wrong?

[kootch]

I don't understand why that link was for "polls are often wrong" when the first 2 paragraphs of the story it linked to specifically say:

"A review of the 159 Governor and U.S. Senate polls reported by the media in 2002 shows a very good performance for most polling organizations. The average candidate error for all polls was 2.4 percentage points. 84% of the polls differed from the election outcome by less than their theoretical margin of error."

I'm confused.

Re:polls are often wrong?

[Bootsy Collins]

I'm confused.

I don't think it's anything deep -- just that "often" is not the same as "usually". If polls are wrong a sixth of the time, it's not crazy to call that "often". (I haven't read the article, so I don't know whether it says that or not -- I just took 100% minus your quoted figure of 84% correct. But it's irrelevant to this comment)

this + electronic voting

[jafuser]

Combine this with electronic voting with no paper trails, and you have a great way to rig an election, since nobody has any idea roughly how it should have come out to even contest the validity of the electronic votes.

Re:this + electronic voting

[eraserewind]

Have to say I disagree. You can always take a series of polls, and publish after the election result if you are concerned about it's validity. Polls distract from the real issues in an election, and journalists focus on asking candidates what are they going to do about their poll figures rather than what they are going to do about . Politicians focus on saying that they are clearly winning, and so don't bother with the other guy. This kind of meta-politics has no real value at all except to divert attention.

This is the way it's done in France

[xlv]

If I remember correctly, that's the way it's done in France for a few days (a week?) before the election.

What's even more important in fact, is that the media is not allowed to report on the campaigns at all during that time, there's a complete black out during which voters are supposed to make up their minds, analyzing the merits of each candidate.

Great idea, but...

[I_Love_Pocky!]

What about the first amendment?

Re:Great idea, but...

[identity0]

Well, the 1st Amendment protects you if you just report the results of a poll, but I don't think it protects the act of collecting the data to begin with. There are plenty of laws governing behavior in public, including political behavior like protests, leafleting, etc.

Conducting an accurate survey would require going to a lot of strangers in public or calling them up to ask questions, and that sort of thing tends to be covered under solicitation laws.

Of course, one could still conduct a volunteer survey, but that would be known to be inaccurate, so people might ignore those.

Re:And?

[Unordained]

... it's bipartisan politics because we let it be. When I get polled, the questions are: which of "the two" (Bush/Kerry) are you planning on voting for, and why (like him/dislike opponent/issues) ... there's no room for saying that I -will- vote for a third candidate, nor to say that I'd rather vote for a third candidate.

With polls like that, no wonder everyone thinks the "independent candidates" are pointless to vote for -- we don't think they have a chance because we don't know how not-alone we are in our opinion, and our system makes our votes "useless" if not voting for the top two candidates.

If we had a smarter voting system, polls might make less sense -- your decision to vote for a candidate wouldn't have a reason to be influenced by who had the best chance of winning among your personal "okay" list. Rather than banning them (which is stupid and wrong) let's make them irrelevant?

Re:Other reasons he's behind in the polls?

[krymsin01]

Obviously someone wanted her there, after all she won?

Re:And?

[Anonymous Coward]

You miss the question here, it isn't about whether people should try to persuade others or not to vote in a certain way, it is a matter of whether people should be voting for something because "5 out of 6 Pepsi drinkers prefer candidate X."

Some of us have an opinion that voting for something based on its popularity is damaging to the political system. We have the opinion that people should vote on the merits of the candidates or resolution being proposed.

Too bad our electoral system doesn't support real choice.

A Republican response...

[DesScorp]

I'm a Republican, and let me say this about Keyes running in Illinois: it's hypocritical in the extreme. Hillary shouldn't have been allowed to run in New York, and Keyes shouldn't have been allowed to run in Illinois. The very concept of a famous person moving to a place just because they think they can win a race stinks. It's basically giving a big backhand to the idea of representative democracy.

When all is said and done, I think that overall, the GOP will win big this year. But when you ask party leaders what they'd do differently, in private they'll tell you that importing Keyes was a huge fuckup, and will likely hurt them in Illinois for years (a state with a not-insignificant 21 electoral votes). Maybe Barrack Obama was going to win no matter who ran against him. But something about the mindset of the GOP in Illinois really bugs me. When Ryan backed out of the race, and Ditka wouldn't run, there was this assumption that since the Dem's were running a black candidate, hey, we have to have a black candidate too. That's stupid thinking number one; just get a good candidate, color or sex not being part of it. Stupid thinking number two comes in when they've decided that they HAVE to have a black candidate, and we've found this woman that's a doctor, and a loyal republican, longtime resident of Illinois. BUT WAIT......Let's bring in Alan Keyes instead! Never mind that he's never LIVED in Illinois before.

Put this one into the "what not to do" section of campaigning.