The Numbers
A Run at the Latest Data from ABC's Poobah of Polling, Gary Langer
Gary Langer is director of polling at ABC News, where he's covered the beat of public opinion for nearly 20 years - conducting and analyzing ABC News polls, evaluating data from other sources and setting the news division's standards for poll reporting. Langer has won two Emmy awards for ABC's reporting of public opinion polls in Iraq, and The Numbers blog was honored this year as winner of the 2008 Iowa Gallup Award for Excellent Journalism Using Polls.
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Online Ballots: Let the Clicker Beware
August 28, 2007 2:05 PM
Feathers have been flying lately about a couple of online ballots posted on ABCNews.com after the recent ABC-sponsored presidential debates in Iowa. The alleged “winners,” if you choose to buy into these compilations of clicks, were Republican Ron Paul and Democrat Dennis Kucinich. Cue howls of outrage from their respective partisans, protesting that ABC hasn’t adequately reported the so-called results.
As my 12-year-old would say, chillax.
The reality is that these things are not polls or surveys, nor does ABC News identify them as such. They are called “online ballots.” They’re posted to encourage a sense of community and participation. But while the clicks they receive are tallied, they never are percentaged. And they’re supposed to carry this disclaimer: “Not a scientific survey. For entertainment only.”
Hold that thought – “for entertainment only” – as we dig a little deeper. Because ABC policy goes further, to require that any subsequent use of these ballots, beyond simply posting them, must note their vulnerability to outside manipulation.
That’s the real issue with online click-ins. Pointing out that they’re produced by self-selection and thus not reliably representative of any broader population is true, and fatal; but it sounds like a technicality – a talking point for the Sominex-sponsored Third International Colloquium on Inferential Statistics. More fatal (so to speak), because it’s at once easier to grasp and more immediately threatening, is the fact that these things can be, and often are, intentionally manipulated by groups or individuals with an interest in the outcome.
It happens all the time. People who want to stuff the ballot box just forward around the click-in’s URL, burying it in an orchestrated cascade of votes for the favored person, position or point of view. Others go a step further, building automated voting bots that jack up the tally for the pre-selected winner. Did this or that debate "winner," say, get clicks from 15,343 people – or from one person clicking 15,343 times? It can be impossible to tell.
Often we don’t know for sure when campaigns to manipulate online ballots occur; there aren’t always smoking guns. We have, though, found a posting on a meetup.com page, urging readers to vote for Paul in the Iowa debate ballot ("Ron Paul Winning ABC Debate Poll! Vote Now!") and to distribute the link elsewhere. The call to arms: “Lets keep RON PAUL ON TOP!” (sic). And Kucinich links to the ballot from his own campaign website; the headline reads, “Kucinich's Lead Keeps Increasing - ABC Debate Poll.”
None of this is remotely new. With the help of a hyperactive online community, Alan Keyes smashed the opposition as winner of a Republican debate in New Hampshire in December 1999, with 49 percent (against five opponents) in a Fox News/Vote.com online ballot. Sadly for the clickers, Quinnipiac University conducted a real poll (that is, a representative, random-sample telephone survey) on the same debate; Keyes got 13 percent, far behind John McCain (who, as it happens, went on to win the primary).
Nearly a year later, on Oct. 4, 2000, the day of the first presidential debate in the general election, Republican National Committee Chairman Jim Nicholson sent an e-mail to his entire membership, urging the nation’s Republicans to click in on ABCNews.com and CNN.com ballots to show their support for George W. Bush. That night, 58 percent in the ABCNews.com ballot picked Bush as the debate’s winner; by contrast, in actual polls by ABC News, Gallup and NBC News, he got 39, 41 and 36 percent, respectively. (Our prohibition on percentaging click-ins came later. Its aim simply is to make them less attractive to would-be manipulators.)
Some members of the FreeRepublic.com online community even have a name for this - they call it "freeping" - and when their side is losing they go so far as to "reverse freep," boosting the other side's vote to make the result so lopsided it's unbelievable. "REVERSE FREEP...the fix is in...they are cheating so vote for Kerry...99-1 invalidates online polls since they are invalid anyway," read one posting in the heat of the 2004 presidential campaign.
The gamesmanship goes far beyond election politics. For some it's a business: then-New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer's settlement in a payola case against Universal Music Group in 2006 disclosed that UMG had paid a "request company" to "jack TRL (MTV's "Total Request Live") for Lindsay (Lohan)." I’ve got a thick sheaf of manipulated online ballots on everything from Tom Cruise to Don Imus to Drum Corps International. (Some joker jacked the results of the lineup ballot for their 2005 Masters of the Summer Music Games in Murfreesboro, Tenn. How low can you get?)
Rich Morin, former polling director at The Washington Post, wrote a priceless description of the issue nearly a decade ago, featuring, among others, Hank the Angry, Drunken Dwarf as People magazine’s Most Beautiful Person of 1998. (The piece still lives here, in what Morin presciently called “the world’s newest and most cluttered attic.”)
Today it’s online click-ins; in an earlier time it was 1-800 call-ins. Back in 1990, for instance, USA Today invited its readers to call in and say whether they liked or disliked Donald Trump. We love the Donald, came back the headline – a smashing 81-19 percent rout in Trump’s favor. At least until a correction appeared in the paper a month later, reporting that an audit had found that 5,640 of the 7,802 pro-Trump calls had come from precisely two phone numbers at an insurance company in Cincinnati owned by an admirer of Trump’s. Thank heaven for redial.
For all its internet fizz, then, this really is just old snake oil in new bottles. Sometimes it's fun and games. Other times it rises to a more serious level – misinformation, even downright disinformation. If it's your thing, click away. Just remember: When it comes to online ballots, if there’s a buck to be made or a point to be scored, chances are very good that someone, somewhere, has a finger on the scale. It's not remotely a scientific survey. And it is, decidedly, for entertainment only.
August 28, 2007 in Polling Methods, Problem Polls | Permalink | User Comments (29)
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I'm curious. If these polls are so meaningless, then why did ABC go to the trouble of resetting one when the result was deemed unacceptable? Why haven't "online ballots" or whatever else you want to call them been dropped from prominence when they're won by so-called leading candidates?
I'm also curious as to whether you checked to see if calls for people to vote were placed on other candidates' websites. I'm guessing you didn't, since you don't mention that one way or the other. Here's to fair reporting, eh?
Posted by: EKSwitaj | Sep 6, 2007 3:31:02 AM
I agree these polls are unscientific.
However, after the FOX debates last night (Sept. 5), both Hannity and Colmes said Ron Paul once again won the call-in poll because his supporters "spammed" the polls by repeatedly voting.
This was totally false. It was impossible to vote twice in the polls.
If nothing else, the polls demonstrate Paul's remarkable ability to mobilize his supporters like no other candidate in the race. And THAT is a very important fact in itself.
Posted by: James W. Harris | Sep 6, 2007 1:20:13 PM
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Posted by: Gary Langer | Sep 6, 2007 5:38:47 PM
You phrase your point well, but I have to raise something that requires thought also.
Why is it that when the media (likely outsourced) controls the polling, the numbers are considered 'accepted' but these numbers are to be considered with a grain of salt. These polls are freely available for anyone to go to the site and vote. Doesn't it make it an accurate representation?
Posted by: Walter Wojciechowski | Sep 10, 2007 5:04:37 PM
All I know is this. If a news story breaks at 7:00 am in the morning, I can have more information than any one news organization by 7:15 just by using the internet.
Sure live video helps. That's where YouTube and other similar sites help. Even the big media newsco sites and TV can play a part in live video. But they usually only show what they have time for or what they want you to see. YouTube is where you go for the raw unadulterated footage and I'm willing to wait for it before I make any snap judgments.
Take Harry Reid's comment about the, "War is lost." I think all the world thinks he said that. What he said was, "As long as we follow the presidents plan, the war is lost." Which I heard as , we're getting our butts kicked and we need to try something different before we fail.
I watched as several news agencies reported his truncated sentence for several weeks. Now it has become truth and it he never said what they reported.
Why would the media do this? Mr. Langer said it best. Entertainment. They have confused news with entertainment.
Posted by: Robert | Sep 10, 2007 11:40:29 PM
The media is being to arrogant here, this marks the beginning of the end for them, in the years to come, more and more people will rely on the unbiased information on the internet instead of this filtered news.
Posted by: Xiao | Oct 2, 2007 2:20:58 AM
Whether Americans will be able to verify electronic vote counts in 2008's presidential election will vary from state to state, as underscored by a little-noticed lawsuit that goes to trial this week in Pima County, Ariz., where Tucson is located.
There, in a fast-growing region, the local Democratic Party is suing the Pima County Board of Supervisors -- including its three Democratic members -- to release the complete electronic records of a 2006 election that included a ballot question on raising taxes for a $2 billion transportation bond. The measure, favored by developers, won even though it lost in prior elections and was trailing in pre-election polls.
The county's Democratic Party and local election integrity activists believe pro-growth local officials may have tampered with the electronic vote count to win. They have sworn evidence a long-time county employee who tallies the electronic vote totals took home backup tapes of the 2006 vote and accessed those vote count files before the official election results were announced. It is seeking the complete electronic voting record to determine if vote count fraud occurred.
"We are asking to get a database," said William Risner, attorney for the Election Integrity Committee of the Pima Democratic Party. "It is not our goal (in this trial) to attempt to prove that anything has happened. We want the data that would help us show that. What we are trying to do is establish our right to get the data and do an analysis. And certainly the fact they are fighting tooth and nail suggests that they have something to hide."
Pima County officials say the election records are not public documents and releasing them could actually reveal ways for partisans or the public to alter future vote counts.
"If the Pima Democratic Party or any member of the public gets access to that programming information, they could affect the outcome of an election," said Amelia Cramer, Pima County's chief deputy attorney.
The election results will be determined by Dibolt and other corporations not the American voters.
Posted by: Doug Brown | Dec 3, 2007 11:51:05 AM
One vote per IP address should do it.
I believe that if this is a survey open to the public for entertainment purposes then each person should be able to cast one vote regardless of where they hear about the survey. Who cares if there is a link posted on a website or emailed to groups who would support one candidate over another.
Posted by: Matt | Dec 14, 2007 5:49:50 PM
The bottom line is that Kucinich and Paul won, whether non-scientific or not! Don't put a poll online if you can't handle the results! Intelligent internet using independent voters picked Kucinich and Paul! ABC has CONTINUALLY tried to keep Kucinich and others from having equal time in debates and now purposely excludes them based on polling numbers. When they did let Kucinich participate they gave him a few minutes only compared to the other candidates! They've made their mind up in advance who they think should win and are forcing Americans to hear from only candidates that they want you to hear from. Absolutely shameful. Absolutely UNamerican! ABC took down Dennis K.'s pic from the candidates page, hardly reports at ALL about him, and is now keeping him OUT of NH debates. With only one state primary gone, ABC has already decided who you should vote for. They miss the point. Americans want to hear from Paul and Kucinich, even if they don't vote for him. Their voices are important to the democratic process and to shaping the future of their respective parties. Big media, Big money, Candidate Shut-Outs! Tell ABC to "" it! Protest. Vote Kucinich See Dennis on PBS tonight (yeah PBS a fair broadcasting system!).
Posted by: Marie | Jan 4, 2008 11:30:01 AM
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