Are polls manipulated? Who orders and conducts these polls? What do we learn from polls?
It is amazing the number of polls which are conducted by polling companies, who, I would suspect, make millions of dollars questioning citizens on everything from politics to peanut butter sandwiches, to whether or not we will have another 100-year flood in Alberta in the next two years.
For the most part, ‘pollsters’ will tell us these polling results are accurate about 17 or 18 times out of 20.
I have often suspected, as I believe many others do, many of these polls are somewhat or at least partly manipulated. For example, if a chocolate company wants to show their candy bar is automatically chosen ahead of other candy bars by 70 per cent of chocolate customers then somehow that could be the result of the polling. Of course the sales on that particular candy bar will soar, just what the chocolate company wanted in the first place.
I often wonder about the accuracy of polls during elections. In particular, I am reminded of the last provincial election here in Alberta. The polls showed one party well out in front in almost all of the constituencies. Many of the professors from some of the local universities were telling us in which direction politically we were headed and surprisingly the polls were showing the same findings.
Was this really correct? While these same political pundits from the universities were so busy offering political analysis, were their students suffering?
The results of the last provincial election in Alberta surely proved neither the professional political pundits nor the polling companies really knew the mood of the Alberta voters.
Would it not seem reasonable, in many instances, the people requesting the poll also word the questions so the answers are what they desire.
A recent poll showed were there to be a federal election held now Justin Trudeau would be the next Prime Minister. That would alarm many, if one could believe the polling results.
We wonder what polls really tell us. One thing for sure is if as one follows these polls, and if they believe what the polls are saying, one may become very elated or depressed.
What one should remember about polls is they are only answers to questions which can be manipulated in their context. One should always be aware of the part of the country in which the poll was conducted, and what element of people to which the questions were posed.
What we should learn from polls is one should be somewhat skeptical when reviewing the results, and always use one’s own common sense when reading them, taking them only for what might be, and not necessarily what must be.
