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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (May 7, 1976)
‘Pollsters are like bacteriologists’ Gallup and Harris: ‘Questionable’ lives By NICK GALLO Of the Emerald George Gallup once compared the public opinion pollster to a "bacteriologist who tests the qual ity of water in a reservoir by taking a few samples ... He can be cer tain that his tiny sample will accu rately reflect the presence of harmful bacteria in the whole body of water." But the question of how to measure that sample and when to dip into the living reservoir pose problems for the pollster. So much so that some critics feel the poll s relation to reality is often less than the shadows in Plato's cave But two Eugene organizations who do polling take issue, for the most part, with recent criticisms of pollsmanship. In the summer of 1968 a Gallup poll and a Harris poll released within a week of one another pro duced widely divergent results. The pollsters quickly called a press conference and announced that they had tapped a massive shift in public opinion, one that corresponded to 10 million voters changing their minds in less than a week. That very well could have hap pened, says Paul Nobisch, a polit ical consultant with Mandate, a Eugene organization that does polling as well as campaign strategy and management for candidates. “In an election year you have a a very fluid situation up until the last few weeks of a campaign." says Nobisch. “Forty per cent of the voters can be undecided be fore a primary — there’s just no initial commitment. No one has marked a ballot and very few have contributed a dollar to someone’s campaign, so it’s useless to be looking for a head count. “All you can look for is which names the voters recognize and what their concerns are," Nobisch says. The laws of probability say that a small sample of people can talk for millions of voters, but there is disagreement on what is the most accurate sample size for different elections. Erica Jovet, who is also a politi cal consultant at Mandate, says polls conducted through that firm use at least 600 respondents. She believes that direct, face-to-face interviewing with this sample size will yield no more than a four per cent margin of error. Tom English, of English Re search Associates, a public opin ion and marketing research or ganization, claims that the inter view is the essence of polling. His interviewers are trained to weigh nuances of opinion in addition to gather hard statistics in order to indicate the intensity of opinions recorded. English adds that much of the art of polling is in the question naire design. Both he and Nobisch agree that it would be easy to rig a poll, as critics claim Gallup and Harris have done. But they see little purpose in loading questions. "Much of our work is campaign strategy and if a question is un balanced we won’t be getting adequate sampling,” Nobisch says. “If a client wants to word questions heavily one way or another we either won’t do it or won't allow our names to be used. Our reputations are staked to these polls.” “Beware of pols bearing polls,’’ a veteran pollster once warned, and English admits politi cians can manipulate polls by selectively leaking parts of polls which reflect favorably upon that candidate. Both organizations avoid tele phone polling. There is the ten dency for the respondents to say anything to get the pollsters off the line, according to English. He adds that it is still true today that low-income voters are more dif ficult to reach through this method. English adds that the least ef fective polls are the mail-out polls and the straw polls, the type of survey that newspapers often run as elections draw near. “Mail-out polls are pretty much self-serving advertising for politi cians, but it’s those newspaper polls that get me angry,” he says. “Thefe is no control over input, so special interest groups have a very good opportunity to influence the results. One group can collect ballots, clip them out and skew the results." Some critics who have cast a cold eye to the pollsters have not ‘None of the above’ Initiative petition could put another alternative on ballot By TOM JACKSON Of the Emerald As the election systems in America are now formed, if a per son has no preference for any of the candidates for a particular of fice, there are few alternatives short of not voting at all. However, Gerald Locklear of Springfield is attempting to have an initiative petition placed on November's ballot. The act, if passed, would create another op tion for persons who do not want to vote for any of the candidates listed on the ballot. The option is to vote for “none of the above.” Locklear explains that "in this country we think we have a par ticipatory democracy, but this is an illusion because voters have almost no participation in the selection of candidates." The initiative says that if the “none of the above” option re ceives a plurality of the votes, in effect, if it wins the election, then the office will be filled by a person appointed by the governor, but a special election must be run within 90 days of the election. It further states that none of the candidates for the office who were voted against (in favor of the none of the above option) will be allowed to re-enter their names on the spe cial election ballot. It would apply to all elective of fices in Oregon, but Locklear says he would like to see a similar pro cess on the federal level, to elimi nate the electoral college in presi dential elections. "I hate being passive," he says. “I am angry because the citizens sell out and submit peacefully to having their minds seduced by all the rotten things that pervade our society,'’ says Locklear. "I'm fighting back." But Locklear is going to have a hard fight to collect the 46,235 signatures necessary to have the initiative placed on the ballot. He says he has collected several hundred signatures in the past Persons interested in aiding in the drive for signatures can con tact Locklear at 260 D' Street, #6, Springfield, OR., 97477. He can also be contacted at 747-8132. PSST! A VALUABLE JOB OPPORTUNITY AWAITS YOU AS THE STUDENT DIRECTOR of the ESCAPE PROGRAM Student status and one year full-time job commitment US required. 1ST Previous leadership experience in volunteer programs required GST Intensive commitment to the ESCAPE Program required. Contact Todd Mains, 327 EMU for application materials. ESCAPE is an equal opportunity employer. MEN, WOMEN AND MINORITIES ENCOURAGED TO APPLY disputed their statistics, but the ef fects of polls upon the public. Is there a “bandwagon effect,” a move by voters and financial con tributors to play the winning horse? Or does the public flock to the “underdog?” Theories abound “No doubt polls affect voters in multiple ways, but no one knows for sure what really happens,” Nobisch says. “I think it balances out in the end. A problem is that people set a poll up as a God when it is really only a road sign.” English noted, “It's hard to say in a close election what effect polls have, but I think election-day polls can have an impact. People think, ‘Why should I vote when they al ready projected a winner? ” Erica Jovet fingers the media for much of the blame. “In the 72 Nixon-McGovern race, the polling booths at the University district were swamped with voters," she said. “They called in for more elec tion machines, but by the time i they arrived NBC had already de clared Nixon the winner and the voters had gone home to stay home.” It should be recognized that pollsters have done extremely well predicting national elections (Gallup has picked 13 out of 14 Presidential winners and has a 1.6 per cent margin of error in those ejections). But do office holders listen to public opinion? “Polls are a direct communica tive link between the public and politicians,” says Nobisch. “It’s a very good way of influencing politicians and it is just as anonymous and sure as the ballot box, even more specific because issues are addressed.' English feels that legislators in Oregon are using polls more now to reveal their constituency’s opin ions. But he did admit that politi cians seem to hire pollsters just before elections. improve the library finance scholarships for classified employees provide for additional faculty travel provide additional student scholarship funds improve the Pine Mt. Observatory restore the millrace build an addition to the Museum of Art ih short, together we can help build a better University , Faculty and staff are being asked this month by their fellow workers to contribute to the Centennial Fund. Your gift can help provide the extra measure necessary to see that the University continues to be a school in which we can all take pride. Together we can make a difference in Oregon s future.
