An open-access poll is a type of
opinion poll
An opinion poll, often simply referred to as a survey or a poll (although strictly a poll is an actual election) is a human research survey of public opinion from a particular sample. Opinion polls are usually designed to represent the opinions ...
in which a
nonprobability sample of participants
self-select into participation. The term includes call-in, mail-in, and some online polls.
The most common examples of open-access polls ask people to phone a number, click a voting option on a
website
A website (also written as a web site) is a collection of web pages and related content that is identified by a common domain name and published on at least one web server. Examples of notable websites are Google Search, Google, Facebook, Amaz ...
, or return a
coupon
In marketing, a coupon is a ticket or document that can be redeemed for a financial discount or rebate when purchasing a product.
Customarily, coupons are issued by manufacturers of consumer packaged goods
or by retailers, to be used in r ...
cut from a
newspaper
A newspaper is a periodical publication containing written information about current events and is often typed in black ink with a white or gray background.
Newspapers can cover a wide variety of fields such as politics, business, sports a ...
. By contrast, professional polling companies use a variety of techniques to attempt to ensure that the polls they conduct are representative, reliable and scientific. The most glaring difference between an open-access poll and a scientific poll is that scientific polls typically
randomly select their samples and sometimes use statistical weights to make them representative of the target population.
Advantages and disadvantages
Since participants in an open-access poll are volunteers rather than a
random sample
In statistics, quality assurance, and survey methodology, sampling is the selection of a subset (a statistical sample) of individuals from within a statistical population to estimate characteristics of the whole population. Statisticians atte ...
, such polls represent the most interested individuals, just as in voting. In the case of political polls, such participants might be more
likely voters
Voter segments in political polling in the United States consist of all adults, registered voters, and likely voters.
Definitions
Political opinion polling in the United States usually surveys one of three population segments.
* All adults are ...
.
Because no
sampling frame In statistics, a sampling frame is the source material or device from which a sample is drawn. It is a list of all those within a population who can be sampled, and may include individuals, households or institutions.
Importance of the sampling fra ...
is used to draw the sample of participants, open-access polls may not have participants that represent the larger population. Indeed, they may be composed simply of individuals who happen to hear about the poll. As a consequence, the results of the poll cannot be generalized, but are only representative of the participants of the poll.
One example of an error produced by an open access-poll was one taken by ''
The Literary Digest
''The Literary Digest'' was an influential American general interest weekly magazine published by Funk & Wagnalls. Founded by Isaac Kaufmann Funk in 1890, it eventually merged with two similar weekly magazines, ''Public Opinion'' and '' Current O ...
'' to predict the
1936 United States presidential election. Similar polls by the magazine had correctly predicted the outcome of the four earlier presidential elections. The magazine's 1936 poll suggested that
Alfred Landon
Alfred Mossman Landon (September 9, 1887October 12, 1987) was an American oilman and politician who served as the 26th governor of Kansas from 1933 to 1937. A member of the Republican Party, he was the party's nominee in the 1936 presidential ele ...
would defeat
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Franklin Delano Roosevelt (; ; January 30, 1882April 12, 1945), often referred to by his initials FDR, was an American politician and attorney who served as the 32nd president of the United States from 1933 until his death in 1945. As the ...
by an overwhelming margin. In fact, the opposite happened. Later studies suggested that the main reason for the error was that Roosevelt's opponents were more vocal and thus more willing to respond to the magazine, compared to the
silent majority
The silent majority is an unspecified large group of people in a country or group who do not express their opinions publicly. The term was popularized by U.S. President Richard Nixon in a televised address on November 3, 1969, in which he said, "A ...
who supported Roosevelt. By contrast, scientific opinion polls taken by
George Gallup
George Horace Gallup (November 18, 1901 – July 26, 1984) was an American pioneer of survey sampling techniques and inventor of the Gallup poll, a successful statistical method of survey sampling for measuring public opinion.
Life and caree ...
correctly showed a clear lead for Roosevelt, albeit still noticeably lower than what he achieved.
A way to minimize that bias is to weigh the results in order to make them more representative of the overall population. This does not make the results of the poll completely representative of the population but it does help increase the chances of the results representing the overall population.
Online poll
An online poll is a survey in which participants communicate responses via the Internet, typically by completing a questionnaire in a web page. Online polls may allow anyone to participate, or they may be restricted to a sample drawn from a larger panel. The use of online panels has become increasingly popular and is now the single biggest research method in Australia.
Proponents of scientific online polling state that in practice their results are no less reliable than traditional polls, and that the problems faced by traditional polling, such as inadequate data for quota design and poor response rates for phone polls, can also lead to
systemic bias
Systemic bias, also called institutional bias, and related to structural bias, is the inherent tendency of a process to support particular outcomes. The term generally refers to human systems such as institutions. Institutional bias and structur ...
. Some others express the hope that careful choice of a panel of possible respondents may allow online polling to become a useful tool of analysis, but feel that this is rarely the case.
Voodoo poll
A voodoo poll (or pseudo-poll) is a pejorative description of an opinion poll with no statistical or scientific reliability, which is therefore not a good indicator of opinion on an issue. A voodoo poll will tend to involve
self-selection
In statistics, self-selection bias arises in any situation in which individuals select themselves into a group, causing a biased sample with nonprobability sampling. It is commonly used to describe situations where the characteristics of the peop ...
, will be unrepresentative of the target population, and is often very easy to rig by those with a
partisan interest in the results of the poll.
The term was coined by Sir
Robert Worcester
Sir Robert Milton Worcester, (born 21 December 1933) is an American-born British Opinion poll, pollster who is the founder of Ipsos MORI, MORI (Market & Opinion Research International Ltd.) and a member and contributor to many voluntary organ ...
, founder of legitimate polling company
MORI
Mori is a Japanese and Italian surname, and also a Persian pet name for Morteza. It is also the name of two clans in Japan, and one clan in India.
Italian surname
*Barbara Mori, Uruguayan-Mexican actress
* Camilo Mori, Chilean painter
* Cesare ...
, which he chaired for 36 years to June 2005, with special reference to "phone-in" polls. He used the term in British
newspaper
A newspaper is a periodical publication containing written information about current events and is often typed in black ink with a white or gray background.
Newspapers can cover a wide variety of fields such as politics, business, sports a ...
The Independent
''The Independent'' is a British online newspaper. It was established in 1986 as a national morning printed paper. Nicknamed the ''Indy'', it began as a broadsheet and changed to tabloid format in 2003. The last printed edition was publis ...
on July 23, 1995 to show how easy it was to rig a phone-in poll by voting nine times. The term is still used to refer to unscientific, unrepresentative and unreliable polls.
See also
*
Push poll
*
Biased sample
*
Social polling
Social polling is a form of open access polling, which combines social media and opinion polling. In contrast to tradition polling the polls are formulated by the respondents themselves.
Social polling is an example of nonprobability sampling th ...
*
Voxpop
*
Urtak
Urtak was a free collaborative public opinion
Public opinion is the collective opinion on a specific topic or voting intention relevant to a society. It is the people's views on matters affecting them.
Etymology
The term "public opinion" wa ...
References
External links
www.doubletongued.org's source for attributing "voodoo poll" definition to Sir Bob WorcesterUses of "voodoo poll" in the media over past 15 yearsExample of a voodoo poll on public opinion on proposed anti-terror legislation in Britain on BBC WebsiteReference to voodoo poll in academic article, page 11 of 31
You can make groups, create poll for election and voting
{{DEFAULTSORT:Open-Access Poll
Types of polling