Bogus poll ballot-box stuffing
From Ubermotive.com, an Australian blog
Last week, News Corporation ran a story about the shock results of an online poll that indicated over 90% of the 16,000 respondents wanted to see a raise in speed limits, despite the poll being paired with an article asking motorists to slow down in consideration for elderly drivers.
Well, I have some news for you: Over 15,000 of those votes were mine.
Also see the ABC Mediawatch story.
Everyone seems to think News Corporation should be worried, or at least embarrassed, but if you pay any attention to bogus polls you’ve already given up on the idea that public opinion is real and important and measurable.
In related news, the Assocation of Market Research Organisations has just released another draft of their Guidelines on Political Polling. Their website currently just has the December draft, but I assume the new draft will be there soon. The guidelines look sensible to me, with my only reservation being the attempt to maintain a “poll” vs “survey” distinction, where “poll” means a real poll and “survey” means a possibly bogus poll.
Thomas Lumley (@tslumley) is Professor of Biostatistics at the University of Auckland. His research interests include semiparametric models, survey sampling, statistical computing, foundations of statistics, and whatever methodological problems his medical collaborators come up with. He also blogs at Biased and Inefficient See all posts by Thomas Lumley »