The Impact Of Polling Upon
Political Elections
Schenck Wiley's
In the past two decades, polls have become a powerful force in the
United States political stage, leading this country into a new era of
politics that focuses more on the horse race rather than the issues of an
election. This new era is quaintly named horse race politics. Horse race
politics have resulted in an apparent symbiotic relationship between
government and the media; the media get high ratings while Washington gets
exposure and campaign support. This has resulted in a public that is
bombarded with mountains of information, at times strategically, but also
for the purpose of informing, allowing them a better information base with
which to make their decisions. This new era of politics came about due to
new methods of polling presidential elections developed almost
simultaneously in 1936 by three different men: George Gallup, Elmo Roper,
and Archibald Crossley. The present-day form of polling grew from the
scientific sampling methods developed by each. Since 1936, polls have
become a more prevalent and influential force in modern politics,
affecting campaign finance, the votes of the electorate, even whether one
votes at all; however, they have also informed elected representatives of
public concerns and allowed the electorate to make well-educated decisions
when voting. Accordingly, polls appear to have an ambiguous affect on
democracy. Through the investigation of several major polling events in
the past twenty years, the facts can be separated from theories, and polls
can be analyzed in their true light. Polls are by their very design
promoters of democracy, yet due to their misuse and manipulation by
political figures and the media, and due to the apathy or ignorance of the
electorate, they have become the target of many critics who claim that
polls threaten the very democracy on which this country was founded.
In order to examine how polls truly have affected democracy in modern
America it is essential to analyze the modern form of polling as it
progressed and developed through the twentieth century, citing key
examples of the influence of polls on the public and political stages. In
1935, George Gallup, a journalism professor turned research director for
the New York advertising corporation Young and Rubicam, created the
American Institute of Public Opinion, otherwise known as the Gallup Poll.
Its reports were simultaneously published in newspapers and indicated the
public’s views on national issues at a given time. At the same time, a
jewelry dealer turned marketing researcher named Elmo Roper was hired by
Fortune magazine to perform several nationwide polls of public opinion
that came to be called the Fortune Poll. The following year, as excitement
over the 1936 presidential election increased and as other newspapers were
adopting polls, the newspaper syndicate King Features hired Archibald
Crossley, a marketing researcher, to perform several election polls. The
then new Gallup Poll forecast a Roosevelt victory in 1936 with only 1500
people as a sample base. The previously distinguished Literary Digest
poll predicted a Landon win with a sample base of 2.4 million citizens.
The Gallup Poll forecast a Roosevelt win correctly while the Literary
Digest, that had correctly forecast every election for the past
sixteen years, did not, corroborating the validity of the Gallup sampling
technique. Before the advent of the modern polling system, media
periodicals had used straw polls--canvasses of randomly chosen
participants or mail-in surveys of accessible subscriber lists such as
those of periodicals--to enhance traditional reporting of elections. The
polls performed by Gallup, Roper, and Crossley were unlike the straw polls
in that they were conducted with a modest but objectively chosen sample
base that represented a cross section of electorate. Additionally these
pollsters asserted that their poll findings--in stark contrast to the very
subjective straw polls on which the political world had
depended--"could be treated as scientifically reliable measurements
of public opinion." Modern polling, though revolutionary, was not the
first to be manipulated by politicians for their own purposes; used from
the election of 1824 to the Franklin Roosevelt election in 1936, straw
polls were most commonly used by biased members of the press and election
candidates in order to debase opponents and parties in the midst of
elections, and to overstate their own odds of winning. Modern polls
inherited many of the same characteristics of their straw poll
descendents. Exactly how modern polls, manipulated or not, influence
public opinion is still an unclear issue; due to the vast number of
variables, most arguments still rest in theory.
Measuring the effect of media polls on the voting public can be very
difficult due to the many variables that might be present at any given
time, such as fluctuations in political interest, awareness of the current
candidates and issues, and shifting levels of support for the candidates.
The waters are further muddied when one tries to determine which segments
of the population will be influenced: the public, the political elite, or
both. Polls can have various effects on the electorate: increased support
for the underdog, a bandwagon for the frontrunner, or decreased voter
participation. The reporting of poll results prior to an election can
cause large voter turnout when the polls indicate a close race, or reduce
it when one candidate shows an overwhelming majority. Radio and television
election night projections of potential presidential winners prior to the
nationwide closing of the polls could possibly impact those who vote later
in the day. From these assessments several modern hypotheses about the
effects of polls on elections come to light.
A very common theory is that polling fosters the "bandwagon"
effect, increased support for the candidate who is leading in the polls.
This theory is supported by behavioral studies indicating that voters who
have no opinion or no strong views about the candidates will respond that
they plan to vote for the candidate who is ahead in the polls. This voter
behavior will be manifested in the increasing shift from those voters who
are undecided to support for the leading candidate as the campaign nears
election day and more poll results become available. In 1944 George Gallup
was quoted as saying,
The bandwagon theory is one of the oldest delusions of politics. It
is a time-honored custom for candidates in an election to announce
that they are going to win. The misconception under which these
politicians labor is that a good many people will vote for a man
regardless of their convictions just to be able to say that they voted
for the winner.
Though the bandwagon theory is more prevalent in the news media, there
are other effects that have equally as much influence.
Conversely, there is a theory that voters who are undecided are
attracted to the underdog. With the progression of the campaign and the
emergence of a leading candidate, the uncommitted public will be drawn to
the candidate running behind in the polls, thus reducing the lead of the
top candidate. This theory is supported by behavioral studies showing that
undecided voters do not want any candidate to have too big a lead and they
throw their support to the underdog to ensure that the margin of victory
is small. Based on these studies, one can theorize that both of these
processes might occur during a campaign. Poll results that show an
increase in support for the front runner could be followed by a swing to
support the underdog, thus reducing support for the front runner.
Both of these theories presume that a large portion of the electorate
will respond to the results of polls rather than to the worthiness of the
candidates; the electorate is more affected by other voters’ intentions
rather than information about the candidates. On this point, polls may
have a greater influence on whether a voter even exercises his vote rather
than for whom he votes. Based on this theory, there may be a relationship
between voter turnout and the margin of victory for a candidate predicted
by the polls. Evidence does not support this correlation because turnout
has been declining while the projected margin of victory has shown wide
deviations since polling became a preeminent tool for predicting the
outcome of elections. Of these three theories, the most useful to a
particular candidate is the bandwagon theory. Earlier, modern polls were
said to have inherited some of the characteristics of the former straw
polls, such as being used by politicians to overstate their odds of
winning. One may ask why do so many politicians believe that the public
will be swayed to vote for the leading candidate in the polls?
Irving Crespi, a noted political analyst answered this question:
. . . Career pressures require them to support a winner, if this is
at all possible. Survival within a political party is contingent upon
one’s proximity to those centers of political power which dispense
patronage and other political favors. Remaining in opposition to a
successful candidate of one’s own party for too long can be
disastrous to a political career. . . . Some politicians are prone to
seeing everyone as subject to comparable influence. . . . However, the
general public’s involvement in politics is of a different order
from the politician’s, so that behavior characteristics of the way
many politicians react to polls is extremely rare among voters.
This idea among politicians has caused many, confident in the possibly
advantageous effects of polls, to release polls specifically designed to
suit their purposes. These have come to be known as "leaked"
polls. Leaked polls are interesting reading material, and they often have
more affect than they deserve. Voters who are considering contributing to
a campaign are among those most influenced by leaked polls. Leonard Hall,
chairman of the Republican National Committee during the Eisenhower
administration, expressed this idea as follows: "If no one else
[does], politicians and spenders read polls. The big contributors like to
know where their man stands, and, just like at the two-dollar window, no
one likes to put his money on a loser." In 1968, the Hubert
Humphrey-for-President effort experienced a decrease in campaign
contributions because early Gallup and Harris polls indicated that Richard
Nixon had a comfortable lead. Nixon was later quoted as saying: "When
the polls go good for me, the cash register rings." The converse
effect of positive poll results on a candidacy has also been documented.
Positive poll results can have a negative effect on one’s campaign as
they did in 1972 when the New Hampshire polls reported that Edmund Muskie
had such a commanding lead that campaign contributions decreased; voters
planning to contribute to his campaign believed that his large lead
suggested that no additional resources were required.
For the most part, however, positive poll results will benefit a
campaign. Leaked polls showing favorable results for a candidate are
likely to bring him more coverage by the press. Every newsman’s dream
assignment is to follow the candidate thought most likely to win the
election. On the other hand, the effect of unfavorable polls can be so
great as to greatly diminish the press coverage of a campaign. In early
1972 the George McGovern campaign noted that it was almost impossible to
get media coverage equivalent to that of Senators Muskie and Kennedy,
because of Senator McGovern’s lackluster showing in the polls.
Candidates in state races have had similar experiences. For example, in
the 1964 New Jersey gubernatorial race the attention of the press was
focused on the Cahill campaign (who would eventually win the race) and
paid only minimal attention to the Meyner campaign. Again there is the
fundamental question of how to ensure that the electorate has a wide
variety of candidates from which to choose instead of only those that look
like winners to likely campaign contributors. Leaked polls often lead
contributors to make premature commitments to candidates that they may
later want to reconsider. This could be avoided by potential contributors
giving less credence to the leaked polls and other campaign strategies. At
times, however, polls have been given far too much credence, becoming the
major issue of a campaign.
George Gallup was quoted as saying, "I’ve never seen one shred
of evidence that polls effect voting behavior." The majority of those
conducting public opinion polls would have to agree for doing otherwise
would mean that polls have influenced United States politics. However, the
fact is that polls have profoundly influenced public opinion and United
States politics. Polls have even been the mechanisms by which campaigns
have breathed their first and last breaths. This was exemplified by the
Nelson Rockefeller campaign. In April of 1968 Nelson Rockefeller entered
the race for the Republican presidential nomination. Rockefeller’s 1968
campaign showed how recklessly the press dealt with political polls and it
represented the first instance when two primary polling institutions
attempted to deny responsibility for their errors. It also exposed the
inconsistency of polls and the large effect that they had on public
decision.
Nelson Rockefeller entered the race for the Republican presidential
nomination too late to enter the state primaries. In order to get into the
race he had to convince previously selected delegates that he was the
better candidate. The delegates would only nominate him if he could
persuade them that he would get more votes than the democrats would in the
November election. Rockefeller’s nomination seemed hopeless; earlier in
the 1964 republican convention he was hooted off the stage by many of the
delegates who would decide his nomination. The New York Times released an
article during this pre-nomination period showing the power of the polls:
"Conversations with the delegates themselves suggest that they will
abandon their inclination to give their votes to former Vice-President
Richard Nixon only if the polls show conclusively that Mr. Rockefeller can
win the election while Mr. Nixon cannot." The biased delegates would
choose Nixon, even if the polls were close.
A few months after entering the race, Rockefeller pumped 4.6 million
dollars into advertisements, not to gain votes for the election in
November, but for the nationally published polls. He conveniently
mentioned to many of the delegates that the public opinion polls expressed
"the hard facts of the situation today." Apparently Rockefeller’s
persuasion worked, when James Reston, one of the delegates, announced
that,
The polls are likely in the end to be more decisive than the
primaries and therefore the candidates will be campaigning to
influence the polls from now until convention time in August. . . .
Governor Rockefeller’s strategy, if that is the word for it, is
obviously aimed at George Gallup and Lou Harris.
Even his opponent, Richard Nixon, acknowledged the influential
importance of the polls, "The polls--that will be the drill down in
Miami. Rocky will come in with figures showing he can run better than the
Democrats in such-and-such a state. We of course will say that’s not
true. There will polls flying all over the city."
In early summer the Harris Poll indicated that Rockefeller led Humphrey
thirty-seven percent to thirty-four percent and Humphrey ahead of Nixon by
the same margin. The margin was quite small; however, it still indicated
that Rockefeller was ahead of Nixon. Two weeks before the Republican
national convention, the New York Times stated that, "A number of
delegates have begun to remark to interviewers that they are increasingly
worried about Mr. Nixon’s ability to win November. They suggest that the
latest Gallup and Harris Polls, which have shown Mr. Rockefeller running
more strongly than Mr. Nixon, have had an impact on their thinking."
Rockefeller appeared to be leading the race for nomination, but the wheel
fell off when the Gallup organization released a poll showing that Nixon
was ahead of Humphrey while a Rockfeller-Humphrey race was a dead heat.
Rockefeller’s plan had turned against him; he could no longer uphold
that he was more popular in the polls than Nixon. Humphrey’s entire
poll-based strategy fell like a house of cards. Herbert Klein, Nixon’s
director of communications, bragged, "Mr. Rockefeller’s polling
game is all over." The results of the Gallup Poll were campaign
shattering. If the poll had corroborated the findings of the Harris Poll,
Rockefeller would have most likely won the nomination. Had Nixon not won a
first-ballot victory, Rockefeller’s campaign may have been bolstered,
Ronald Reagan may have gained former pro-Nixon votes in the South and
West, or a Dark Horse may have won the nomination.
The concept that a political poll such as the Gallup Poll could cause
such changes could make one question its accuracy. The Harris Poll results
contradicted those of the Gallup Poll; the Harris Poll reported that
Rockefeller led Humphrey forty percent to thirty-four percent, while
Humphrey led Nixon forty-one to thirty-five percent. The debate began over
which pollster organization was wrong; was it Gallup or Harris? Harris
blamed Gallup for the error and a debate over who should accept the blame
ensued. Representative John Moss called for an investigation: "The
time has come for someone to step in and investigate the polling
practices; the unprecedented act of the nation’s two largest pollsters
combining in a common effort to correct their previous positions
underscores that need." In response to the call for investigation
Gallup and Harris issued a press release explaining that the results of
their polls were not that dissimilar. They said, "Public opinion
changes over time and each was an accurate reflection of opinion at the
time it was taken." The two pollsters also attributed some of the
difference to unavoidable sampling error. One should note that the press
release contradicted the poll of the Gallup organization, stating that,
"Rockefeller has now moved to an open lead over both of his possible
Democratic opponents, Humphrey and McCarthy." Neither the Gallup or
the Harris Polls underwent any investigations despite the threats of
investigation, political slander, and the harsh pen of the press.
Politicians’ efforts to reform polling organizations were unsuccessful.
It is possible that the attempts at reform failed because sampling error,
one of the factors that the pollsters said had probably caused the
discrepancy, could not be controlled.
Error in poll results can greatly influence the way that the public
interprets poll findings. For example, if a particular poll releases
results that favor one candidate, forty-nine percent to forty-three
percent, with eight percent undecided, the public interprets that
information as a substantial lead. This lead may actually be attributed to
sampling error. Support for the leader in the race may have been
overestimated by three percent, while support for the other candidate may
have been underestimated by three percent. In this way a dead heat of
forty-six percent to forty-six percent can be changed into a substantial
lead by sampling error. The remaining eight percent undecided voters could
very well decide the race. The error of the two major polling
organizations, Gallup and Harris, ranges from plus or minus three or four
percent. The actual power of the polls depends on past accuracy. Despite
this fact, it is possible that poll error might be beneficial to
democracy. Occasional error in poll predictions may benefit the political
process and the press. Since 1952, polls have correctly forecast the
winners of presidential elections; however, in some instances they have
projected elections as very close or too close to call when the actual
results of the election were more slanted than originally predicted.
Substantial variations in the margin of victory should be a reminder to
the electorate that polls are imperfect. The voting public should not
depend on poll results to select the candidate for whom they will cast
their vote; polls are subject to the whims of public opinion and are not
replacements for actual elections. Following the same idea, it is possible
that the accuracy of polls can be harmful to the political system. For the
press, the problem may be that polls are too precise. They may be so
accurate that the public loses interest because the outcome appears to be
known long before election day. If polls were always accurate, elections
would be a let down and only validate what has been known for some time.
Error, among other variables, has an effect on political polls but the
exact effects that polls in turn have on public opinion have still not
been determined. This curiosity might cause one to wonder how public
opinion operates in a democracy.
In the early years of polling George Gallup and political scientist
Lindsay Rogers maintained very opposite points of view about the role of
public opinion. In The Pulse of Democracy Gallup presented his
position while Rogers’s opinions were detailed in The Pollsters.
The crux of their argument was their basic difference in position
concerning the role of public opinion in a democracy governed by elected
representatives. Gallup put his confidence in the common man’s ability
to make wise choices and was suspect of political pundits and experts. On
the other hand, Rogers took an elitist view; he believed the political
intellectuals’ opinions to be superior to those of the uninformed
public. Gallup held as his ideal the New England town meeting in colonial
times where direct democracy was prevalent, and the public enjoyed
self-rule by voting directly on all issues. From Gallup’s position, the
problem with a democracy ruled by elected representatives is how to make
those representatives aware of and responsible to the electorate’s needs
and desires. Gallup believed that lack of direct public opinion in
government would cause representative democracies to deteriorate into
elitist governments. Potentially, polls may cause the media reporting of
election campaigns to be uninteresting because the accuracy of modern
polls tends to predict the election before it ends. However, polls can
provide candidates information about their strengths and weaknesses so
that they can adjust their campaign strategies and their communication to
the electorate. If voters act responsibly polls should act as enablers by
providing more information about a candidate and his views, and the
intentions of other voters. Gallup asserted that the public’s voice to
their representatives could best be heard with the findings of modern
political polls. He considered poll results to be a "mandate from the
people" that expressed the public’s views on national issues. The
expression of public opinion in elections would no longer be subjective
information prone to debate but rather the irrefutable scientific findings
of the polls. Government representatives could look to the polls to obtain
an accurate view of the public’s opinion on an issue instead of relying
on the biased information of special interest groups such as newspapers or
letters received in the mail. Additionally, Gallup speculated whether
periodic elections were sufficient to maintain democratic government,
stating that, "Democracy is a process of constant thought and action
on the part of the citizen." He further stated that polls can
compensate for the periodic and insufficient expression of public opinion
in elections by playing an informing role: "Legislators, educators,
experts, and editors, as well as ordinary citizens . . . can have a more
reliable measure of the pulse of democracy." The idea that government
should be responsible to public opinion in a representative democracy was
highlighted by the claim that polls are reliable gauges of public opinion.
Based on this idea, political leaders in a representative democracy ought
to serve as delegates for the electorate, voting accordingly in Congress
and other legislative assemblies. As a result, the public opinion poll was
to be considered a scientifically accurate device for determining the will
of the public. Samuel Stouffer, a sociologist and public opinion poll
pioneer upheld that polls "represent the most useful instrument of
democracy ever devised." Though understandably biased, based on his
credentials, Stouffer’s statement brings to light the major debate
surrounding political polls: how do they affect modern democracy?
As the battles among candidates for an election heighten and the press
swells with polls, criticisms of polling become more common. Polls play
important roles in campaign tactics, and correspondingly in the methods
that the press uses to report on an election. Three interdependent issues
exist related to the controversy associated with the uses and misuses of
polls by the media and the purpose of polls in the democratic process. The
first issue is the journalistic emphasis on polls as an indicator of which
candidate will succeed, rather than on the questions being debated in the
election campaign (the horse race of an election rather than the issues of
an election). The second issue is the significance of reporting poll
findings on the results of the election. The third is the debate over what
limitations should be exercised on reporting polls. Some cynics of polls
suggest that lower voter turnout for elections is related to the polls;
the electorate feels that there is no need to vote since they believe that
the polls have already determined the election outcome. Even before the
beginning of modern polling and the institution of new electronic forms of
communication, newsmen had a keen interest in forecasting which candidates
would win the elections. Predictions boosted sales. If these predictions
were more reliable than straw polls, they would be welcomed by the press.
The news media have the desire to report information that is fresh and
current; poll results about political races are potential sources of news
even if that information is that there has been no change in the polls. In
most instances the issues associated with political campaigns do not
change; there is very much sameness to these issues and often it is
difficult to find permanent solutions for them. Thus it is not unexpected
that journalists would stress the horse race aspects of polling over and
above the candidates’ opinions on the issues, except when the candidates’
adopting of specific issues are relevant to their amount (or shift in
amount) of public support. The model used for reporting poll results for
elections has been expanded, often improperly, into use during political
campaigns. Poll results that were initially used to project winners of an
election have begun to be collected for other campaign activities. For
example, substantial resources of time, effort and money have been spent
on public opinion polls that only name the "winner" of debates
between candidates. These poll results appear to be a part of a continuing
competition among the media to generate and report new information about
candidates. Much as with debates, news media corporations have manipulated
polls so as to express volatility when there is none. Vacillation in polls
heightens the public’s interest in elections and in election coverage.
Just as with car races or horse races, the electorate finds political
races more stimulating and enjoyable to follow where public support for
candidates changes during the campaign. Whether contrived or by accident
the press has chosen a technique to communicate poll results that suggests
that there have been larger fluctuations in the results than have actually
occurred. They report the percentage point spread between the two
candidates, a measure that by its very nature suggests volatility, instead
of providing comparisons of absolute levels of voter support between two
polls. The media reports may indicate change in polls when there really is
no difference.
In 1988 only 30 minutes after the first George H. W. Bush-Michael Dukakis
debate, Peter Jennings of ABC News interrupted the post debate analysis to
release the results of which candidate had "won" the debate
based on interviews with 500 people who had watched the debate. That poll
and others by the Los Angeles Times, by Gallup for Newsweek,
and by CBS News/New York Times were conducted to determine the
"winner" of the debate. These poll results were widely
distributed by the Associated Press and in most cases were given lead
story or front-page status. Two perspectives related to how the media
reported the post debate poll results are relevant here. The first is the
importance the press placed on who won and their margin of victory.
According to ABC News Dukakis won by 44 percent to Bush’s 36 percent
while other polls showed them deadlocked. The broadcast of these post
debate poll statistics bore a close resemblance to the reporting of
election results. These polling interviews also included questions about
observed qualities of the candidates; but these results were relegated to
second page status or not reported at all. The second aspect is the media’s
use of interviews with "expert" political analysts and
spokespersons for the two candidates who analyze and provide commentary
about the political meaning of the poll results. Instead of being
considered only as expressions of public opinion, poll results were
regarded more as news occurrences, and were accompanied by the
explanations and subjective comments of political experts. When poll
results are communicated as if they were election results and political
experts are employed to analyze the results, polls provide the electorate
little information about public opinion and appear to have a negative
effect on democracy.
Before modern polling techniques became available, dictatorial
governments such as the Soviet Union under Stalin depended on individual
surveillance by secret agents in order to maintain a watchful eye on
public attitudes. Democratic governments, however, depend on periodic
elections to ensure that government is in accordance with public opinion.
In most cases those elections are sufficient to uphold democracy;
nevertheless, much change can occur in public opinion in the intervals
between elections, causing one to question whether the government policy
is actually representative of the public views. It is under those
circumstances that polls could be most beneficial to democracy by assuring
that in-between elections, public opinion becomes an important component
in political debates concerning public issues. However, polls can only
benefit democracy in this way if they are widely published and made
available to the entire electorate, not only the political elite. Polls
can also benefit democracy by allowing the public a greater information
base with which to make their decisions, thereby enhancing public debate.
In order to do so, however, poll results must not only become public
property; the media must communicate them in a manner that is significant.
Conventional means of communicating one’s ideas to an elected
representative outside of elections include the well-known "letter to
your Congressman," the lobbying attempts by special interest groups,
and letters to newspapers. Nonetheless, very few numbers of the public
take advantage of these forms of communication. Furthermore, the special
interest groups may themselves be blind to all public opinion other than
their own concerns. The consequences of all these factors have the same
effect; many citizens’ views do not reach their elected representatives
and thus do not contribute to political debate. Democracy is therefore
threatened because political leaders will be out of touch with current
public opinion and thus will not take into account the needs and desires
of the public.
In the 1988 presidential race and the 1992 primary season, polls
endured a deluge of criticisms. Many citizens, critics, and even reporters
believed that polls were affecting elections and supplanting subjective
forms of expression. Polls should not replace less-scientific methods of
discussion, a lesson learned early in the age of straw polls: Poll results
might best be treated as information to foster debate, not stifle it. If
polls are thought of as helpful but not entirely perfect, they might lose
their influence over the public and serve only an informing role. Social
scientists such as Robert Erickson and Norman Luttberg claimed that the
inaccurate subjective polling processes used before the advent of modern
objective polling were very partisan. Erickson and Luttberg also noted
that modern polls have "focused [the public’s] attention to the
fact that various devices of public expression available in a democracy
were not channeling an accurate reflection of public opinion to public
decision makers." They referred to several polling reports that
mentioned the apathy, lack of knowledge, and unfamiliarity of large
portions of the electorate, and questioned the dynamic role that public
opinion is thought to have in democracy. Perhaps the public’s declining
role in democracy is due to their dependence on polls as their sole or
primary information source. Norman Bradburn, a noted political analyst,
stated, "Whether or not voters believe what the media say about the
meaning of polls, poll results are part of what they think they know about
the campaign and may become part of their conversations and thoughts about
the election."
With the unprecedented "proliferation" of polls in America in
the past twenty years, political polls have had influences over democracy;
those influences, however, are steeped in theory. Polls have been
perceived in this way because most of the effects of polls are
undetermined because hard factual evidence has not been acquired to
support the theoretical effects of polling on democracy. This is in part
due to the variability and unpredictability of public opinion, but also
due to the inability to determine whether certain influences have direct
or indirect effects.
It has been proven conclusively that polls do effect democracy; polls
affect elections therefore democracy. While the public opinion poll,
responsibly used, could greatly strengthen the democratic process by
providing the people yet another way of making their views known, polling
used in an irresponsible manner could be quite harmful. In the Rockefeller
case, the polling organizations were not investigated because no wrong
doing on the part of the polls had been committed. The Gallup and Harris
Polls were the scapegoats for Rockefeller’s misguided choice to let the
polls decide the nomination. His failure to take into account the
variability of public opinion and therefore the variability of the polls
cost him the nomination. Rockefeller’s 1968 campaign also pointed out
one of the most damaging effects of misused polls; the focus on the horse
race rather than the issues. Though campaigns have had a hand in this
effect, such as Rockefeller’s $4,600,000 investment in campaign
advertising for the polls, the press has played the primary role. Voter
apathy rather than the polls themselves could be harmful to democracy.
Polls seek to foster democracy by promoting debate, yet the media puts to
rest all potential arguments by emphasizing who "won" a debate
or who is "winning" in the polls. Due to methods of reporting,
polls have replaced other useful information that could otherwise inform
the public and increase interest in elections. Media organizations need to
consider more than their bottom line and give the public the information
that might actually help in making their vote choice. Often polls have
been misrepresented and some have been deliberately rigged or
strategically released, yet they have all been treated with unquestioning
respect. The general public could not discern a leaked poll from a
perfectly viable one. That may, however, need to become a prerequisite for
voting in the modern age of horse race politics. It is the duty of the
public to be well informed, casting off the cloak of ignorance that limits
the democratic ideal of the polls. The polls seek to promote democracy by
their very design; however, the public must express a greater interest and
a more active role in the elections of the leaders of their country in
order for polls to fulfill their original purpose. Once the scientifically
proven effects of modern polls on democracy have become clear, the media
and campaign policies could be regulated, within the bounds of freedom of
expression, so as to prevent the publishing of material potentially
harmful to democracy. As with a weapon in irresponsible hands, polls have
the potential to do great damage to democracy even though they were
originally intended for its preservation.