Polls Away!

Political opinion polls are conducted to gauge the public's reaction to certain events or politicians, especially during as election year, and also to influence unsure members of the electorate.

Rarely are they unbiased and usually they are flawed.

Take, for instance, the results of a poll conducted by Emerson College and release by Channel 8 News yesterday.

The opening question was: If the primary election were held next week, who would your vote for, Warren or Evans?

There was no "Neither" option offered, only "Unsure."

That was the first flaw.

Evans ranked ahead of Warren by 10 percentage points, 49 to 39, with 12% "unsure."

Before Warren's detractors start to celebrate prematurely, they need to be reminded that she did poorly in the polls against the Great White Father, Tom Richards, in the 2013 election, yet trounced him in the primary, beating him out for the Democratic Party endorsement.

The second flaw was a biggie.

The Democratic Primary is only open to card-carrying Democrats, yet Republicans and Independents were also polled..

While they can vote in the General election in November, they cannot vote in the Democratic Primary on June 22.

However, Evans also has the Working Families Party line in the November election, no matter what happens in the Democratic Primary. Independents and Republicans can vote for him at that time, but not before, so their opinions regarding the Democratic Primary were both unnecessary and uncalled for.

Yet the pollsters asked them, anyway.

There were a host of other questions about "performance," with wildly different results based on demographics.

Once again, it put Evans in the lead, for what that is worth.

Of course, I usually wonder where and how pollsters get their data. That, too, makes their methodology and their results questionable.

Personally, I regard political polls as being akin to a witch doctor throwing up sand in the air between two opposing armies and shouting curses just before a battle. 

It doesn't do any harm, and sometimes it frightens the enemy a little.




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