September 23, 2014

I’m not even sure where to begin on this highly important topic

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New Zealand’s favourite biscuit.

I just clicked on a link on the homepage of the NZ Herald which says “NZ@Noon: NZ’s favourite biscuit revealed” which took me to an article with a snippet saying:

Bay of Plenty voters have taken to the polls. Find out which biscuit triumphed in the annual nationwide biscuit election.

This lead to another article with the headline: “Mallowpuffs voted Bay’s best biscuit” which includes the following (emphasis mine):

Bay of Plenty voters have taken to the polls and voted Mallowpuffs Original their favourite biscuit in an annual nationwide biscuit election.

Around the country, close to 5,000 votes were cast by biscuit-lovers who also voted Mallowpuffs Original as the national favourite, ahead of 57 other contenders.

Kiwi women were once again more passionate about pledging their support, contributing 94 percent of the votes nationwide.

The 2014 Bikkielections poll was conducted via an application on Griffin’s Facebook page from September 9 to 21 following weeks of campaigning via billboards, radio promotions, polling booths and street sampling. The poll has a margin of error of plus or minus zero percent.

That’s a first, right?

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Rachel Cunliffe is the co-director of CensusAtSchool and currently consults for the Department of Statistics. Her interests include statistical literacy, social media and blogging. See all posts by Rachel Cunliffe »

Comments

  • avatar
    Thomas Lumley

    The clicky poll on the linked story has gingernuts and ToffeePops tied for first place, but it only lists 11 of the varieties. Since gingernuts are objectively the best, it means polls on newspaper websites must be better than polls on Facebook pages.

    Or something.

    The NZ Dental Association is probably worried this will lead to a #MomentOfTooth.

    10 years ago