And Barack stood up that day, and spoke words that have stayed with me ever since. He talked about “The world as it is” and “The world as it should be.” And he said that all too often, we accept the distance between the two, and we settle for the world as it is — […]
The Turbulent Electorate: Palin Goes from Zero to 60 in One Week
Rasmussen Reports: A week ago, most Americans had never heard of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin. Now, following a Vice Presidential acceptance speech viewed live by more than 40 million people, Palin is viewed favorably by 58% of American voters. The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 37% hold an unfavorable view of the […]
Fund an Honest Poll?
As we’ve noted here, no one is doing an honest public opinion poll. Every
Talk to the People in Your Life
Probably the most-asked question about VotePact is the question of trust. How can you trust someone you’ve met on the internet? Well, we’re using the internet to spread this idea, have set up a FaceBook page and such, but we’re not really suggesting that people meet on the internet. We want people to deal with […]
Evidence of a Trapped Electorate
I’ve been talking to several polling experts, especially sharing my “Why Public Opinion Polls Aren’t” piece. Charles H. Franklin at the University of Wisconsin sent me some interesting polls, especially this one: FOX News/Opinion Dynamics Poll [June, 2007] Would you consider voting for a presidential candidate you like who is a third party independent candidate? […]
Why Public Opinion Polls Aren’t
[A shorter version of this piece was originally published by the Dallas Morning News on September 27, 2004.] With all the discussion of polls and the presidential race it may be hard to believe, but I have yet to see a single poll asking whom people want to be president. Virtually every poll has a […]
The Trapped Electorate
I’ve been talking to several polling experts. Charles H. Franklin University of Wisconsin when we first talked said that he thought that he’d seen some IRV polls for the presidential race. I told him I’d be most interested to see them. He looked around, couldn’t find them, so apparently no IRV polls have been done. […]
Introducing an IRV Presidential Poll
You’d think that if Barack Obama and John McCain backed something, it would dominate the political landscape. But both have spoken out in reforming our voting system to include instant runoff voting, whereby voters rank candidates 1-2-3 rather than only voting for one candidate. And while IRV is making some headway, as documented by the […]
Could Google Using IRV Revolutionize Polling?
Bo Considering all the polling and all the reporting on polling, it’s remarkable that no poll is asking people who they want to be president. Both Obama and McCain have backed IRV voting. As a state Senator in Illinois during the 2002 session, Obama introduced SB 1789 which would have adopted instant runoff voting for […]
Review of Gaming the Vote
rating voting
