We Ask America ran an anonymous robo-call poll last Wednesday asking voters if they'd be less likely to vote to re-elect Congressman Bill Foster (IL-14) after his vote for the health care reform bill. The results of the poll indicate that 57 percent of the district's independent voters are less likely to vote for Foster. The Daily Herald covered the story here and here. The problem is that some people who wanted to register their support for Foster were unable to do so due to a "glitch" in the program and at least one person informed Foster's office of the problem. The company that ran the poll claims it was not commissioned by anyone to do the poll. However, the owners are Republican supporters and contributors and that casts even more doubt upon the poll results, which are making their way into Republican rags like this. So much for We Ask America just doing these polls for fun.
With today's technology any idiot can become a pollster, especially if they use automated calling. Polling is an unregulated activity that is conducted by well-established and reputable pollsters, universities, non-profits, media, web sites, and a myriad of small companies. Participants are selected on a random basis and are supposed to include a wide cross section of the targeted population. However, methods for selection may not be truly random and the margin of error may not correctly reflect the accuracy of the poll itself.
The phrasing and order of questions, as well as the participant's understanding of the questions, may also skew results. There may be errors in the tabulation of results and there is often misrepresentation of the results as we have seen in polling on health care reform. Take a look at this headline from The Hill and then read the article below it. If you hadn't read past the headline or the first sentence, you would probably have a very different impression of where the public stood on health care reform.
Deliberately misinterpreting the results of a poll is one thing, but crafting a poll to produce the desired results is quite another. According to the authors of American Government & Politics Today, public policy shifts in the direction of the polls 43 percent of the time as opposed to moving in the opposite direction 22 percent of the time. The authors also state that a 20 percent shift in public opinion is likely to move policy in that direction. So there is strong incentive to manipulate polls to produce results that will influence policy. We have no way of confirming poll results. Even if we could call the same participants and ask the same questions, the results could be different from the original poll. So we accept poll results at face value and if we are discerning voters, we look for other polls that confirm those same results to recognize trends.
But even if we could trust the results of every poll taken, is there any reason to allow polls to drive policy decisions? William Martel, author of Victory in War, and an associate professor of international security studies at Tufts University thinks so. He offers this advice that appears on the CNN web site. Contrast this advice against the stories of great Americans who had the courage to speak out against popular opinion when they thought it was wrong. Or the simplistic advice offered in patriotic country music lyrics like Aaron Tippin's You've Got to Stand for Something (or you'll fall for anything). Our American myths are a lot different from the reality of the political landscape.
How do we reconcile the following advice from Martel's op-ed piece:
When viewed in light of the dramatic change in public opinion in recent months over where to hold terrorist trials, it seems ever more obvious that the president will have to change U.S. policy.
The shift in public opinion is instructive.
with our beliefs that we must stand upon principle? The simple aswer is that we can't. The Justice Department's decision to try the terrorists in open court is based upon the law of the land bolstered by a Supreme Court decision striking down the military commissions as unconstitutional. But that correct decision may be in danger due to polls and the political posturing that occurs because of those polls.
According to Martel we are supposed to ignore the rule of law though and instead adhere to the results of a poll simailar to the CBS poll showing that 54 percent of Americans think the terrorists should be tried in a closed military court. The poll does not tell us how many of the respondents were familiar with the Supreme Court decision or if the respondents were aware of the fact that in the three cases tried in military commissions to date, two of the three defendants are already free. The conviction rate for terrorists who have been tried under the American criminal justice system is actually better.
The poll does not tell us whether the respondents believe that the accused have rights under our Constitution. Many people that I talk to are not aware of the fact that the courts have repeatedly affirmed that this is the case and that the 14th amendment provides equal protection under the law to citizens and non-citizens alike. They believe that the terrorists should be denied any rights and they believe the military courts allow this.
Despite the flawed nature of polls in general and the fact that polls have no and should have no legal force, Martel makes the following argument:
The policy governing trials for terrorists was a direct casualty of political fallout from the Christmas Day terror attempt. Polling data, particularly from the Massachusetts election where Republican Scott Brown defeated Democrat Martha Coakley, suggests that fears about terrorism helped Scott Brown win.
...
While policymakers truly hate to change course, the White House must reverse its earlier policy of closing Gitmo and trying Mohammed and other terrorists in U.S. civilian courts.
American public opinion creates a political imperative for Obama: Realign U.S. policy as closely and precisely as possible with overwhelming public opposition to civilian trials in the United States -- and make that effective "yesterday."
In other words, we need no legal or moral imperative for our actions as long as we can offer a political imperative based upon something as transient as polls. We are to believe that the political ramifications of an action must outweigh the legal and moral consequences. If this is what passes for acceptable governance then we have sacrificed our heritage and whatever self-respect and decency we once had on the altar of public opinion.