I was polled earlier.... Very weird experience

[Momof1]

First off the guy asked if I was home. Not my last name. Just my first name.

Then he said he was conducting a poll and would I mind taking a few minutes answering questions.

"OK No problem" I replied

"If the election were held today, who would you vote for Bush, Kerry or Nader?"


I answered Kerry, and he hung up on me !!!!

I didn't catch what company he was supposedly calling from, but it really pissed me off!!

[Eurobabe]

1. maybe it was a nosy neighbor!

[calico1]

2. Doesn't sound like a real poll.

I'll bet it was a neighbor, a coworker or maybe some relative.

[The Backlash Cometh]

3. Or maybe...the Republicans have moles in the boiler room

of the polling company? Do you suppose it's possible that's how these polls are getting skewed? They don't really need the jobs, but they have them in order to hang up on Kerry supporters?

How can someone investigate this?

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

10. Very good point. I've thought about stuff like this too. Scares me.

[delete_bush]

4. Could be the Dept of Homeland

Re-Education, trolling for new "students"

[Deb]

5. I've received calls from Anti Abortion groups

that were exactly like that.

[Freddie Stubbs]

6. Probably the GOP trying to identify supporters

They are likely creating a list of people who support Bush. These people will be contacted right before the election to maximize turnout. It's an effective strategy, and we also do this.

[gauguin57]

7. It was probably a GOP push-poll ...

... but you sounded so sure of who you were voting for they didn't want to waste their breath.

They probably had all kinds of "questions" to ask you, and then the final questions would be something along the lines of:

"Did you know that John Kerry is having an affair with a sheep and that Teresa is making napalm in her basement for al-Qaeda?"

"Did you know that John Edwards wants you to worship the devil and Elizabeth eats fetuses for breakfast?"

I once agreed to answer a "short, I promise!" poll, and the woman kept me on the phone for 25 fucking minutes, and it turned out to be a push-poll for the REPUBLICAN attorney general candidate. "Did you know that so-and-so has fought for the common man?" or some such thing was the last of a few "last questions" that were all advertisements for the candidates.

That's why I think the polls are skewed. You get burned like that once, you don't want to get sucked in again.

[chookie]

8. I had a weird one today too

The woman said she was from a professional polling company, and wanted information about where people got their news from.

She said she wanted to speak to men between 18-42. I said none were available. She asked when they might be available, and said, I dunno.
Then she said she had nothing further to say.

Fair enough. But I suspect that it was a freep poll, or a push poll. Had the conversation gone on, I would have said -- look baby, people like you make money from getting information from people, so why should I tell you anything for free in a capitalist country?

These fuckers. Nazi activists are even getting the fucking AMISH to vote for Bush. I guess there are asshole Amish, just like there are assholes everywhere, BUT if their assholes help to elect Bush, then I say they must then give up their conscientious objector status. How dare they vote to decide war, when they themselves reject it?

[happyslug]

9. That might be a real poll

Real Pollsters want to make sure the people they call are truly representative of the General population. It is NOT random in the sense they just pull a number, but set up in a structured way to make sure the poll results accurately reflect what the general population feels. In your case it looks like they wanted to either poll males 18-42 OR the person who called you needed a male 18-42 in your census track and economic background to make his "sample" reflective of the population as a whole.

Look at those two possibilities I lean to it being a poll of Males 18-42, young male urban professionals, the least likely to use TV. Some one wanted to see where males 18-42 get their news from and since you had no male sin your household they was no one for the poll takers to poll.

I doubt it is a poll that needed males, females are also needed in such polls but it is sometimes the situation that a poll taker just can NOT get enough people of one demographic (male or Female, While, Black, age group etc) in a set census track (The basis for any real polling). Real poll takers will call a house 2-3 times just to get to talk to the person who lives in that house for such people represent the people from their economic/race/age background AND picking another house/person may just invalidate the poll.

Professional poll takers want polls that mean something not an ego boost, thus real polls are done with scientific rigidity to be as accurate as possible.

Now, people have heard of "Push-polling" when someone says he is taking a poll but is really pushing his candidate, that is NOT a real poll but a worse type of poll is a poll set up to get a pre-determined results. Many of the polls being released in this elections are of this later type, it is NOT to see who is winning but to show that Bush is Winning (Even if he is losing). This type of "false-polling" is even more common than "Push-polling" for these "false-polls" are than cited by the Candidate and the Media as "proof" that a candidate (in this election Bush) as leading. Some people will vote for the person they think will win and if you can convince enough people to vote for you for you are going to win anyway, you can win a close race. Thus a lot of these "False-polls" are being cited to convince people by repetition that Bush will win and you should vote for him if you want to vote for the winner.

Just a comment on "Rea polls", "Push-polling" and "False Polls" so that people understand why some of these "polls" do not seem to add up.

[PA Democrat]

11. It was more than likely one of the political parties.

The callers don't identify their party because that might influence peoples' responses. These calls are to identify leaning and undecideds for follow-up.

[Joy Anne]

12. absentee ballots

I had one of those from the Democrats. If you answer the questions correctly, they'll offer to send you an absentee ballot.

I said, "Thanks, but I'm working my polling place for my state representative candidate on election day, and I'll definitely be there."