OpEdNews.com is running its second OpEdNews/Zogby People's Poll. The idea of the poll is to get "we the people" involved. We want YOU to help us choose which questions to ask in our poll. Specifically, we want suggestions for issue questions-- immigration, corruption, impeachment, energy and gasoline, health care... you tell us... and about unusual demographic questions. More on the details later.
Our first poll was, without dispute, the first complete poll commissioned by a progressive news organization, and possibly, the first commissioned by an internet only web media site. We solicited questions from our readers, our pundit writers, other progressive commentators, radio talk show hosts and whoever else we could reach out to. This time we are also reaching out to bloggers.
How it works:
First, to get an idea for how we did the poll and the kinds of questions we asked, I suggest you take a look at the polling articles and reports we published regarding our first poll. Check my article archive for articles dated from Jan 16, 2006 through February 16.
Our goal is to ask questions that mainstream polls won't ask. Last time we asked if voters would support the requirement for free political ad air time. The response was a resounding yes. We asked a number of questions on voting and showed that less than 15% supported electronic voting without paper ballots. We asked about impeachment and we'll be asking more questions on it, with the changes in the conversation that have been taking place, especially since the legislatures in
California, Illinois and
Vermont have proposals for impeachment before them and we have over 500 articles on our
Bush: Reasons to Dump/Impeach subject page
Demographic questions:
It is routine methodology for pollsters to ask questions on age, gender, education, income, party affiliation... and then they can get creative-- religion, military family, union family, NASCAR fan family, frequency of attending church... We intend to ask some different questions to see if they tie to other voting considerations or issues. We will also do a demographic against demographic analysis which will be able to inform us what percentage of Democrats and Republicans are Catholic, Jewish, Black, over 50, etc. We're looking for creative demographic questions. Semi facetiously, for example, what color clothing do you wear most often. Blue, Red, black, brown?. Or, what TV news show do you get your news from: Fox, MSNBC, CNN, NBC, CBS, ABC, other TV
So... please post your suggestions for issue questions, for demographic questions. We'll pick the ones that we think best reflect our goal of posing questions that you wouldn't see in mainstream media polls.
Part of the art of polling is phrasing the questions.
The poll associated with this diary raises some possibilities. We'd also love your input on the phrasing of the questions.
We ARE looking for media co-sponsors. If you are interested in your site or print publication co-sponsoring the poll, for a very reasonable price, let us know. So... let lose in the comments below, or email me at rob@opednews.com.
comment to Zogby internet poll bashers: Some critics complain that internet based polls are not as reliabel as phone polls. Historically, phone polls were, at one time, bashed for not being as reliable as face to face. But now, phone polls fail to reach people under 30, who tend to use cell phones. This is a weakness of phone polls, and since voters under 25 tend to vote more liberally, attacking internet polling is attacking polling that more accurately reflects younger voters' effect upon poll results. A report on CNN today says that even children from low income families have access to the internet, which puts another picture on the argument that internet access is dependent upon income. The future of polling is the net-- not polls like the ones done on Kos, which are fun, but polls that use random contact to a scientifically balanced mix of key demographics.
