Report Outline
Concern About Polls in Election Year
Development of Polling Techniques
Difficulties in Regulating Pollsters
Concern About Polls in Election Year
Confusion Over Voter Preference for President
Public opinion polls are often referred to as the country's fifth estate. Some persons charge that polls have come to exert undue influence over the other four by relaying to the executive, legislative and judicial branches of government and the news media what “the people” think and want. It is hardly surprising that the pollsters, like all powerful groups, are being subjected to scrutiny and criticism. And it is even less surprising that polls are receiving particular attention as the 1976 election approaches.
Pre-election surveys represent only a small fraction of all polling. Less publicized but far more extensive and profitable is the research conducted for business, government, foundations. pressure groups and even churches. But it is the voting surveys that command public attention, and on these surveys pollsters stake their reputations. Their ability to gauge election results accurately is their best advertisement in attracting other and more lucrative business.
Surveys taken late in 1975 by two of the best-known pollsters, Gallup and Harris, cast considerable doubt on the accuracy of polls in general and pre-election polls in particular. The Harris organization questioned 1,214 “likely voters” between Nov. 24 and Dec. 1. Gallup polled 1,078 “registered voters” between Dec. 5 and 8. The sampling techniques used by both groups were similar and so was the question—voter preferences between Sen. Hubert H. Humphrey (D Minn.) and President Ford, and between Humphrey and Ronald Reagan. The findings were startlingly dissimilar, as is shown below:
| |
Preferred Ford |
Preferred Humphrey |
| Gallup |
51% |
39% |
| Harris |
41 |
52 |
| Gallup |
50% |
42% |
| Harris |
43 |
50 |
|
|
