The Definition of Political Polls
During local, regional and national elections, political parties and candidates use the political polls to measure their success or lack of success. Organizations with a specific agenda or goal also utilize polling in order to learn how to frame their message and how many voters are aware of the organization's goal.
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The Definition
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When the word "poll" is used as a noun, it means a sampling of opinions on a subject collected from either a specific group of people or a random sampling, in order to conduct an analysis. When a political poll is used correctly, it measures the opinions of participants in order to determine the probable opinions of a much larger portion of the population.
Random Sampling
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In a random sample, respondents are chosen based on ratio. Names and phone numbers are chosen from a list; these are counted off on a predetermined ratio (every fifth person or every seventh person). A specific number of respondents is chosen in order to represent the entire population of a selected area. The selected respondents are contacted, usually by phone, and asked specific questions in order to obtain their thoughts and beliefs. The data are collected, recorded and used in order to determine what the entire population is said to believe.
Convenience Polling
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Convenience polling is not considered a scientific polling practice because the respondents are usually self-selected. The SLOP or "self-selected opinion poll" is generally conducted in an area where people are congregating, such as a mall or discount store. SLOPs are also conducted online; this is also considered unscientific because respondents who participate are not randomly selected by the organization conducting the poll. As a result, the final numbers may be skewed in one direction because the participants who participated may have had a specific purpose or agenda for participating.
Purpose of Polling
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Candidates use polls to find out how well or how badly they are doing with voters; someone who is thinking of running for office can also use a poll to find out what constituents in his district think and what the true issues are. If a political candidate has a controversial past, he can use polling to find out what his constituents believe about the issue, be it drug use, an extramarital affair or his sexual orientation. News organizations partner with polling organizations to measure the opinions of voters over time (tracking poll) as they attempt to figure out which candidate may win more votes.
Other Uses of Polls
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Political parties use polling to learn what voters think of different types of topics, such as plans to build a highway on land which houses several endangered species. Their purpose for doing this is to figure out how they can create a message which will be favorable toward their position and how they can get voters to assimilate this position. When polls are used for this kind of purpose, the message that results is called "propaganda." When political parties do this kind of work, they generally have a specific goal in mind--they need the voters to help them meet their goal.
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