Who here has been "Polled"?

I saw a thread on reddit that echoed what I have been thinking for some time. egoassassin.com...

When is the last time you have been Polled? Do you know anyone that has been polled? Personally, I have never been polled and I don't know a single person who has.

When they say that 70% of the US disagrees with the war, who exaclty made up that 70%? While I agree that those numbers could be fairly accurate, I just have to wonder who they are polling.

Has anyone here ever been a part of an official poll?

Hey there,

Great question, you have to love all the various polls out there, with their sampling of say 2,750 people with the always gratuitous margin of error being a low + or - 3%. I am sure all the Statistics majors could explain to us why a sampling this low is supposed to give us a clear idea of what the whole country thinks.

Unfortunately, that wasn't my major, and I cannot, but since I have had the same phone number, land line, that is, for almost 20 years, I have actually been polled! Amazing eh?

The last poll call I got was about 2 months ago, and I was expecting a call anyway and just picked it up without looking at the caller ID.

It was a poll concerning the latest "issues" I guess you could say, since all the questions were concerning global warming, gas prices, the war in Iraq and the economy.

From the questions I couldn't determine what group or outfit might be behind it, but yes...I have been one of the chosen!

I get polled alot but I am a registered Green independent soon to be just independent.

See that answers the thread and provides info to move forward but it is just one line so now I got to add this onto the end or something.
it's an imperfect policy.

[edit on 2-4-2008 by stikkinikki]

T.V. polls are fake, Cause they always have some poll about something everyday from new people that never voted in T.V. poll.

Let me guess, you talking about some fox news polls? fox news is a joke.
Fox News Unofficial, Yet Official Slogan: "Hear What You Want To Hear For Ignorant Rich Republicans"

reply to post by LateApexer313

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Wow, thanks for the input. It is good to hear that people really do get polled. Since your answers represent a very large chunk of the population, I hope you chose wisely

reply to post by Karlhungis

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I'm not sure if I did, in fact, now that you have reminded me about this last polling experience, I found myself laughing at some of the questions, much to the chagrin of the poll taker, who obviously was taking her job very seriously.

She didn't laugh with me.

So I assume I was at least not answering them according to her beliefs, but c'est la vie.

That is an interesting question though...anyone out there have a Statistics background who could share the mathematical reason that such a small sampling could possibly represent a much larger population accurately?

reply to post by Files

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No, it wasn't a FOX News poll, that I know of anyway...it was, of course an independent polling company, they sent me an e-mail thanking me for finishing the poll, and trying to get me to participate in focus groups etc.

I have no idea, like I said, who paid for the poll, they never tell you that.

I've had tons of local news station poll calls, and local radio stations etc who always identified themselves.

Interestingly enough, I had some calls from an unidentified Washington DC number, asking me to vote for Hillary when Ohio had their primaries... I say interesting because I saw a similar post on here about someone being called by a number that just said 202-000-0000 or whatever the prefix is from DC, and when I answered, it was someone who said they were calling on the "behalf" of the Clinton campaign, not the campaign itself, and when I pressed for who the "behalf" part was, as in who are you...they didn't answer but kept right on with their sales pitch.

[edit on 2-4-2008 by LateApexer313]

I personally think that the people who send out polls try to choose the population with the most likelines of saying what they want to hear. Well thats my opinion anyway.

And yes I have been asked to take a poll before. But I told them I wasnt interested.(probably just wanted personal info so they could send me adds.)

Somebody attempted to poll me once. I got a call one day from somebody claiming to be from Gallop or some other organization. (I forget.) I hung up on them because I did not want to be bothered at the time.

reply to post by Karlhungis

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I love how inaccurate those statistics are. If they poll 1000 people and 700 disagree then 70% of their poll disagrees, now consider how diverse this country is and all the thousands of different types of "demographics", to accurately get a statistic they would have to poll every man woman and child of every race, and that will never happen, statistics are used purely to sway the general public to the side of the majority in the favor of whoever is doing the polling, i think they are douchebags personally.

I used to work at calling up people to poll them. The people who make up the questions aren't idiots, they know how to get the results they want. Questions are asked in a specific order and in a specific wording and offer specific responses so they may please the client who is paying for the poll (often we never knew who was paying and sometimes, the organisation paying was unknown and untraceable).

They take a small amount of people, statistically this would give a good image of people's opinions... if they were truly conducted in an unbiased fashion.

I answered a call for a poll about presidential powers such as wire tapping etc. when it came to people who might be considered a threat to national security.

After I answered the poll, I felt uneasy as if I was the target and they were requesting this one me. It really made me paranoid....again. She called a few times after that, but I didn't answer it again.

It's like asking someone if they would like to be on Americas Most Wanted list.
However, I would like to see someone like Madd TV do a parody on this subject. Ever hear about those stories where they tell criminals they won some gift to arrest them?

I had a US Census taker in my home several years ago, and my newest housemate was adamant about ansewring all the questions - leaving me no room to answer honestly. She made up the most ridiculous lies I've ever heard for this poor census taker.

Maybe it was for the best - I'm too damn honest - but that was the closest to an offical "poll" I've ever been to.

Yes, I have been polled several years ago during the last presidential election. I don't know if it was what is called a "push-pull", but you had to answer their questions using their answers.

Example: What do you consider the most important issue today?

The weather, the war, the immigrants, terrorists.

My answer would have been "the economy".

Using this method they can come out with the statistics they are looking for.

reply to post by Karlhungis

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i've been polled. it was a poll of teens concerning various issues (which i'm guessing was to throw me off the actual main point of the poll)

I've been polled both by phone and by internet. I think zogby even lets you sign up for their polls if I remember correctly.

Tela