Traditional Polling Research Articles

What is an Opinion Anyway?

Traditional polls assume that opinions on any political or social issue can be collected simply by asking straightforward questions and recording the answers. Wrong. Many people have not carefully sifted the available information or formed a firm opinion prior to interview. Nevertheless a traditional poll counts all responses as having equal validity, however and whenever they are formed. Qualitative research, although allowing more open discussion, nevertheless exerts the same pressure on respondents to have a view. Group dynamics and the discussion guide and leader also combine to steer the group towards consensus. If only people were made to pay attention to the facts and substantive issues, as in a deliberative poll, then we would know what ‘informed’ public opinion would think. Trouble is, as the government has found, the answers obtained could be said to be critically dependent on the information the researchers choose to provide to respondents. This paper investigates the potential for large-scale e-Delphi polling methods, simply giving large representative samples of voters simple questions on broad topic areas to consider. Via an iterative process, the job of researcher is then to observe what views people hold and give those views back to respondents to rate and comment on. The method allows people to think about the broad subject area, express a view in their own time, if they have one, and/or respond to the views of others. We can observe which thoughts are popular and which have an infectious capability. Critically, the job of the researcher is not to ask – but to listen.

From Tweets to Polls: Linking Text Sentiment to Public Opinion Time Series

We connect measures of public opinion measured from polls with sentiment measured from text. We analyze several surveys on consumer confidence and political opinion over the 2008 to 2009 period, and find they correlate to sentiment word frequencies in contempora- neous Twitter messages. While our results vary across datasets, in several cases the correlations are as high as 80%, and capture important large-scale trends. The re- sults highlight the potential of text streams as a substi- tute and supplement for traditional polling. consumer confidence and political opinion, and can also pre- dict future movements in the polls. We find that temporal smoothing is a critically important issue to support a suc- cessful model.

Can the Internet Increase Political Participation? An Analysis of Remote Electronic Voting’s Effect on Turnout

There are far-reaching expectations that electronic democracy will increase political participation, and include previously underrepresented groups in politics. So far, however, there is little empirical evidence to monitor such trends. In 2007, Estonia became the first country to organize national parliamentary elections in which all voters had a choice of casting their vote at traditional polls, or over the Internet. This study analyses individual data from a special survey of 1000 respondents, as well as aggregated election results for, the 234 Estonia municipalities. Instead of attracting new voters, it seems, Internet voting mostly substituted for existing votes at the polls. Furthermore instead of attracting social groups that usually abstain from elections, Internet voting has for the most part attracted the same politically well-established groups. Finally, it seems that the effects of this new voting technology are not politically neutral: Internet voters favoured political parties that receive strong support from the ethnic majority and from wealthy areas. If it is to have any effect on political participation, Internet voting seems poised to increase inequalities, rather than level them.

Prediction Markets: The Collective Knowledge of Market Participants

Prediction markets provide an information-aggregation technology applicable to a variety of topics, including political and financial risk. Because of the human idiosyncrasies identified by behavioral finance, prediction markets can fail, but historical data show them to be as accurate as traditional polling methodologies and far less expensive to establish and maintain.

On the Analysis of the Bluetooth Time Division Duplex Mechanism

Efficient communication in Bluetooth networks requires design of intra and inter-piconet scheduling algorithms, and therefore, numerous algorithms have been proposed. However, due to complexities of the Bluetooth MAC, the performance of these algorithms has been analyzed mostly via simulation. We present analytic results regarding the exhaustive, gated, and limited (pure round robin) scheduling algorithms in piconets with bidirectional and unidirectional traffic. We show that a piconet operated according to the limited scheduling algorithm is equivalent to a 1-limited polling system and present exact results regarding symmetric piconets with bidirectional traffic. Then, the difficulties in analyzing the performance of the exhaustive and gated algorithms in a piconet with bidirectional traffic are demonstrated. In addition, we present exact analytic results for piconets with unidirectional traffic. We show that, surprisingly, in symmetrical piconets with only uplink traffic, the mean waiting time is the same for the exhaustive and limited algorithms. This observation results from the differences between piconets and traditional polling systems and can be extended for time-division-duplex systems with arbitrary packet lengths. Furthermore, we show that the mean waiting time in a piconet with only uplink traffic is significantly higher than its corresponding value in a piconet with only downlink traffic. Finally, we numerically compare the exact results to approximate results, presented in the past.

Sexism Versus Partisanship: A New Look at the Question of Whether America is Ready for a Woman President

We question the validity of traditional polling about the likelihood of respondents to vote for a woman president and argue that the use of such polls may overestimate sexism and underestimate the role that party identification and individual characteristics play in deciding about whether to vote for a woman president. Our analysis of data collected in May–June 2004 show that many people who say they will not vote for a woman for president would do so if given realistic, specific, political scenarios via head-to-head match-ups with potential candidates. Although survey respondents preferred George W. Bush to Hillary Clinton, the margin between these candidates was close especially considering that Bush had been actively campaigning for months, whereas Clinton had not.

Reducing Processor Usage on Heavily-Loaded Network Servers with POSIX Real-Time Scheduling Control

Polling I/O mechanisms on the Unix platform such as select( ) and poll( ) cause high processing overhead when they are used in a heavily-loaded network server with many concurrent open sockets. Large waste of processing power incurs not only service degradation but also various troubles such as high electronic power consumption and worsened MTBF of server hosts. It is thus a serious issue especially in large-scale service providers such as an Internet data center (iDC) where a great number of heavily-loaded network servers are operated. As a solution of this problem, we propose a technique of fine-grained control on the invocation intervals of the polling I/O function. The uniqueness of this study is the utilization of POSIX real-time scheduling to enable the fine-grained execution control. Although earlier solutions such as an explicit event delivery mechanism also addressed the problem, they require major modification in the OS kernel and transition from the traditional polling I/O model to the new explicit event-notification model. On the other hand, our technique can be implemented with low cost because it just inserts a few small blocks of codes into the server program and does not require any modification in the OS kernel.

Will New Technology Boost Turnout? Evaluating Experiments in E-Voting v. All-Postal Voting Facilities in UK Local Elections

Proponents argue that using technology to modernize the process of casting a ballot, especially the implementation of remote electronic voting (e-voting), could boost electoral participation. E-voting is thought to be a particularly important reform designed to encourage turnout among younger people. Evidence to evaluate this claim is available from experiments conducted by the UK Electoral Commission using pilot schemes available to over six million citizens in 59 different English local government districts during the 1st May 2003 local government elections. These contests are characteristically low-salience events where only a third of the electorate usually cast a ballot. The pilot schemes provide an exceptionally good test of the effects of modernizing electoral administration and voting facilities, as the public in each district cast legal votes in an official contest. The pilots experimented with alternative ways of facilitating remote electronic voting, including use of the Internet from home and public access sites, interactive digital television, SMS text messaging, and touch-tone telephones. Pilots also used all-postal ballots, getting electronic information to voters, and extended voting periods. For comparison, in the remaining areas the public cast a traditional in-person vote by marking crosses on standard paper ballots in local polling stations. The evidence from the aggregate results, and from the post-election survey, confirms that the use of all-postal voting facilities had a significant impact in strengthening turnout by about 15% on average, as well as improving public satisfaction with the electoral process. Yet claims that remote electronic voting can automatically resuscitate electoral participation should be regarded with considerable skepticism: pilots using remote e-voting combined with traditional polling stations, but without all-postal ballots, proved ineffective in improving overall turnout. The main reason is that all-postal ballots had their most significant impact upon improving voting participation among the older generation, who were already most motivated to vote. In this regard, the simple Victorian postage stamp beats the high-tech microchip hands down.

Traditional, Online Polls Reported Differently

This content analysis of both traditional and online polls in selected U.S. newspapers from 1996 to 1998 finds substantial differences in the way they are reported in news stories.

Approximations for the waiting time distribution in polling models with and without state-dependent setups

A polling model is a queueing model where many job classes share a single server and a setup time is incurred whenever the server changes class. Polling models are applicable to many computing, telecommunications, and manufacturing environments. The scheduling method considered in this paper is a common policy known as cyclic, serve to exhaustion (CSE). Recently, Coffman, Puhalskii and Reiman (CPR) have developed a heavy-traffic approximation for the waiting time distribution in a CSE polling model. This paper presents three new approximations. Firstly, the CPR approximation and the traditional (non-heavy-traffic) polling model literature are combined to obtain a refinement of the CPR approximation. This refinement is much more accurate under conditions of moderate loading. Next, an approximation is made for the distribution of the number of jobs present in a queue upon it being polled. Lastly, the previous two approximations are combined to form an approximation for the waiting time distribution when setups are not performed for queues containing no jobs. A simulation study is undertaken to evaluate these three approximations.

Media Reporting and Perceived Credibility of Online Polls

By employing three different methods—content analysis, survey, and experiment—this study attempts to answer a series of questions about online polls: how news media report them, how people perceive them, and how people perceive the influence of reports of traditional versus online polls on the credibility of news stories. Our findings suggest that U.S. news media have increasingly reported online poll results since 1995 and that the public generally considers opinion polls found in traditional news media more credible than online polls. Even though the experimental findings do not show statistically significant differences in poll credibility and story believability between traditional and online poll story versions, there is a pattern of slightly higher scores for the traditional poll story version, lending some support to the survey findings.

An interpolation approximation for expected wait in a time-limited polling system

We consider the problem of determining the expected waiting time of arrivals at a particular queueing station in a multi-system configuration with a single server operating under a time-limited polling discipline. At each station, we assume Poisson arrivals and a general service distribution, which does not have to be the same at each station. A simple and accurate interpolation approximation is developed for this mean and compared with known and simulation results. Scope and purpose Computer/telecommunication systems frequently use polling schemes to alternate service to multi-queued customers in an equitable manner. But traditional polling rules like exhaustive and gated service have limited usefulness in these systems. As a result, interest in studying the behavior of time-limited disciplines has arisen. In practice, the complicated combination of non-exponential service and/or fixed-length orientation times makes the necessary analysis quite difficult. In this paper, we develop and test relatively simple formulas for estimating expected customer waiting time in polling systems wherein the server moves to the next queue if the number of customers at the present queue drops to zero or the fixed-time limit is reached, whichever occurs first. The derivation of the formulas uses ideas from the theory of functional interpolation.

Mortality of scallop spat in cultivation, infested with tube dwelling bristle worms, Polydora sp.

Between 1995 and 1997, a traditional Norwegian oyster poll with an attachednursery was used for the production of scallop (Pecten maximus) spat.During summer 1997, four batches of 2 mm scallop spat were placed in thenursery. In June, hydroids (Obelia) caused problems with fouling andaccumulation of sediment in the nursery. Thereafter, the scallop spat wereheavily infested with tube dwelling polychaets (Polydora sp.). Thepolychaets were both introduced with poll water and reproduced inside thenursery. Infested spat suffered high mortalities. Although the spat could have been affected by the hydroids, as well as shortage of food, Polydorainfestations were considered the main cause of the mortalities. Dead andinfested spat were continuously sorted out and discarded, but the infestationproblems persisted. As a result, the scallop spat did not represent anycommercial value for the company, and in September, the nursery wasemptied. In total, approximately one million spat – representing onethird of Norway's intensive scallop spat production in 1997, was lost.

GOING POSTAL: How All-Mail Elections Influence Turnout

Jeffrey A. Karpand Susan A. Banducci We examine the question of whether or not reducing the costs of voting by conducting elections entirely through the mail rather than at the traditional polling place increases participation. Using election data from Oregon, we examine whether or not elections conducted through the mail increase turnout in both local and statewide elections. Using precinct-level data merged with census data we also examine how postal voting may alter the composition of the electorate. We find that, while all-mail elections tend to produce higher turnout, the most significant increases occur in low stimulus elections, such as local elections or primaries where turnout is usually low. The increase in turnout, however, is not uniform across demographic groups. Voting only by mail is likely to increase turnout among those who are already predisposed to vote, such as those with higher socioeconomic status. Like other administrative reforms designed to make voting easier, postal voting has the potential to increase turnout. However, the expanded pool of voters will be limited most likely to those already inclined to vote but find it inconvenient to go to the polling place. This conclusion is consistent with the growing body of research that suggests that relaxing administrative requirements is not likely to be the panacea for low turnout among the disenfranchised.

Preelection Polling in the 1982 Illinois Gubernatorial Contest

All the polls in advance of the 1982 Illinois gubernatorial election proved incorrect in their prediction of a substantial victory for James Thompson, the Republican. After examining some of the popular explanations for the missed call, this paper shows that while the voters preferred Thompson, there was a very substantial increase in the number of straight party ballots cast for the Democrats, compared to 1978. This paper concludes that in those states where straight party vote is an option, the poll takers probe for the possibility of a party line vote. Information used in this paper to examine five hypotheses stems from a preelection poll of 1,200 Illinois voters. Richard Day is President of Richard Day Research, Inc. (RDR), a survey research firm based in Evanston, Illinois. Kurt Becker, formerly with RDR, is now a law student at the University of Michigan. Public Opinion Quarterly Vol. 48:606-614 ? 1984 by the Trustees of Columbia University Published by Elsevier Science Publishing Co., Inc. 0033-362X/84/0048-606/$2.50 This content downloaded from 207.46.13.176 on Mon, 20 Jun 2016 05:49:52 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms PREELECTION POLLING 607 This paper focuses on the Illinois gubernatorial election in 1982 and discusses five explanations of why the polls yielded errant projections. Support for one of these explanations provides an important methodological consideration for future survey research in other elections and in other states. Reported polling results for the 1982 election for governor of Illinois are reported in Table 1. Two firms undertook procedures to project the final outcome by assigning the undecided voters on the basis of demographic and partisan information (Table 2). There was no difference in projections between the Gallup survey and the RDR survey. The RDR survey also tested for variation between the 10/31 results and the 11/1 results and found no significant shifts over the two days before the election. First, a most basic criticism of polling needs to be addressed: faulty procedures. Errant information could stem from several sources: samples were too small or improperly drawn; interviewing was conducted at times of the day when certain types of people were more likely to be at home; random digit dialing was not employed in areas where there is a high concentration of unlisted numbers; callbacks were not made to contact those more difficult to reach (younger, higher income, more educated individuals). Such sources of error have been reviewed (Perry, 1979; Field, 1979) and are known. The Table 1. Polling Results for the 1982 Election for Governor of Illinois Dates Client/Firm Thompson Stevenson Undecided 10/22-24 Chicago Tribune/ Market Facts, Inc. 53 34 13 CBS Affiliate (WBBM-TV)/Market Shares 58 38 4 10/28-29 Chicago Sun-Times and NBC Affiliate (WMAQ-TV)/Gallup 55 40 5 10/3111/1 ABC Affiliate (WLS-TV)/Richard Day Research, Inc.a 55 38 7 11/2 Election day actual vote 50.07 49.93 a Of a sample size of 1,200, 780 were used for statewide purposes and 420 represented an oversample in Cook County. For Cook County, the appropriate sample size is 737. In every instance, weighting was by area and percentage of the vote in the 1978 election. There was an even distribution of males and females. This content downloaded from 207.46.13.176 on Mon, 20 Jun 2016 05:49:52 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 608 RICHARD DAY AND KURT M. BECKER Table 2. Projections of Final Voting Outcome Dates Firm Thompson Stevenson (N) 10/28-29 Gallup 58 42 (2,562) 10/31Richard Day 11/1 Research, Inc. 58 42 (770) need in preelection polling to screen properly for those registered voters who are likely to turn out has also been clearly identified (Perry, 1973; Traugott and Tucker, 1982). The survey by RDR and surveys by the Gallup Organization addressed such sources of error.' The authors have no knowledge of methods used by other firms. However, as Kohut comments, When a half-dozen polls come up with the same erroneous answer, the chances are that there is some systematic factor that transcends traditional polling methodology (Kohut, 1983).

Attitude Measurement and the Gun Control Paradox

The discrepancy between public support for gun registration as measured in national surveys and legislative inaction on the same issue leads to questions about the adequacy of traditional poll measures of public opinion. Hypotheses about three kinds of shortcomings are tested: (1) gun registration sentiment tends to vary appreciably with question wording, and therefore is less crystallized than survey data suggest: (2) anti-gun registration opinions are held with greater intensity than are pro-gun registration opinions, and therefore have different consequences for political action: (3) opposition to gun registration is located particularly among those with greater political knowledge and influence, and thus has a disproportionate impact on legislators. Although there is some evidence in support of the first two hypotheses, it does not appear sufficient to explain the discrepancy. However, the study produces a valuable finding about the use of intensity measures in attitude surveys, particularly the importance of designing and measures of maximum sensitivity to nonlinear relations. Language: en