Any thoughts on this?
I can see the usefulness of tracking polls for the candidates–when accurate they can help candidates choose where to expend their resources most efficiently.
However, what is their use to the voter? I know who I’m voting for, and I honestly don’t care who everyone else is voting for. Doesn’t the proliferation of polls contribute to an “I want to vote for the guy who’s winning” attitude that is somewhat antithetical to a person making an informed choice for the person he or she honestly wants to be President?
Personally, I’d rather be surprised by the outcome on Tuesday night than hear the constant refrain of “tracking polls indicate Bush will take so and so and Gore will take thus and such.”
I think polls do hamper the democratic process.
Heard the refrain lately that a vote for Nader is a wasted vote so you had best vote for Gore?
Without polls it might be anybody’s guess as to how well Nader is really doing and more people might vote for him. Almost certainly there are some people out there who might want to vote for Nader but will vote for Gore instead because they feel, according to the polls, that Nader doesn’t stand a chance.
Unfortunately in a free society with a free press I see no way that this could be stopped. IIRC some countries impose a ban on polling some few weeks prior to an election but that would fly in the face of the US Constitution so I doubt any such thing could be implememted here.
(NOTE: This post is not meant to in any way endorse one candidate over another. It is merely to illustrate an issue.)
poles have been used by both parties to get voters to vote a certain way (called push polling). i.e. do you think it’s a big factor that canidate A’s has accepted money from terrorist org. B.
also IMHO:
I think certain media will present poles in a way that would benefit one canidate over another. There is some talk that the poles will start showing Algore gaining ground in hopes to sway the undecided voters that the undecided voters are voting for Algore and it is ‘safe’ for them to vote for him. I guess we will see pretty soon.
I think that the recent spate of wild fluctuations in polling (especially Gallup) has caused a lot of people to distrust them anyway…in a sense, the more polling that is done, the less meaningful the polling results really seem…I think that there is a lot more talk about the validity (or lack there of ) of most polling…so I actually think that the effect of polling on peoples choices maybe going down…