{"id":9734,"date":"2018-03-02T07:00:15","date_gmt":"2018-03-02T12:00:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/?p=9734"},"modified":"2018-03-01T19:41:57","modified_gmt":"2018-03-02T00:41:57","slug":"candidates-ask-supporters-to-stuff-online-poll","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/?p=9734","title":{"rendered":"Candidates Ask Supporters to Stuff Online Poll"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Adam Pagnucco.<\/em><\/p>\n

Back in the days of Maryland Politics Watch, we would occasionally set up online polls for various races.\u00a0 The polls had no validity, of course.\u00a0 They could not screen for registered voters, much less those in a particular party or county, and even those that limited each IP address to one vote could be easily gamed through multiple devices and masking software.<\/p>\n

But we did it anyway for two reasons.\u00a0 First, we were greatly entertained by the thought of frenzied candidates snapping the whip over armies of interns and yelling, \u201cVote faster!\u00a0 You\u2019re not pushing the vote button fast enough!!\u201d\u00a0 And second, they got lots of eyeballs, or at least apparent eyeballs.\u00a0 Your author once scrutinized the traffic coming into one of our better performing online polls and discovered that most of it was coming from a handful of IP addresses.<\/p>\n

Eventually, we stopped.\u00a0 The \u201cpolls\u201d added no value to the readers\u2019 understanding of the elections.\u00a0 And they also turned into a huge waste of time for candidates.\u00a0 After we posted yet another online poll in 2010, one candidate emailed and said, \u201cI really hate these things.\u00a0 I have to drop everything and start voting!\u201d\u00a0 We took that comment to heart.\u00a0 From that point on, your author determined that it was only worth doing a poll if we could invest it with some kind of methodological validity.\u00a0 That\u2019s easier said than done with an online poll!<\/p>\n

That has not stopped others.\u00a0 On Wednesday, Bethesda Magazine did an online poll on the Council At-Large race<\/a>, which it admitted was \u201cnot scientific,\u201d with SurveyMaker<\/a>.\u00a0 The poll began making the rounds on Facebook and one political insider sent it to your author, breathlessly panting, \u201cUnscientific, but very surprising!\u201d\u00a0 Then a complete unknown, Steve Solomon, took the lead spot and folks started to understand just how unscientific this poll was.<\/p>\n

Solomon\u2019s \u201cwin\u201d was not an accident.\u00a0 He is a sports radio host and he encouraged his listeners to vote for him on both radio and Twitter.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Solomon was not alone.\u00a0 Neil Greenberger sent out a blast email asking his supporters to stuff the poll.\u00a0 He told his list that while the poll was unscientific, \u201cIt is better to be vaulting in this poll than to be lingering.\u201d\u00a0 He even said, \u201cYou don’t have to be a registered voter or live in Montgomery County vote in this poll. Just let them know who you would like to see come out ahead in the June 26 Democratic primary.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Now look.\u00a0 We do not absolutely deplore all online polls.\u00a0 They can be fun and buzzy, and if folks want to push buttons for kicks, that\u2019s fine.\u00a0 But it\u2019s absolute cross-eyed tomfoolery to see them as containing any merit.\u00a0 Candidates, listen up.\u00a0 If you spend your time pumping worthless ca-ca like this instead of phone banking, door-knocking and raising money, your chances of winning will be about as high as the coyote\u2019s chances of catching the road runner.\u00a0 Now get back to work!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Adam Pagnucco. Back in the days of Maryland Politics Watch, we would occasionally set up online polls for various races.\u00a0 The polls had no validity, of course.\u00a0 They could not screen for registered voters, much less those in a particular party or county, and even those that limited each IP address to one vote … Continue reading Candidates Ask Supporters to Stuff Online Poll<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[151,209,131],"tags":[1545,1933,1907,1538,2153],"class_list":["post-9734","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-adam-pagnucco","category-council-at-large","category-polls","tag-adam-pagnucco","tag-council-at-large","tag-neil-greenberger","tag-polls","tag-steve-solomon"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4mKJE-2x0","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9734","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9734"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9734\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9738,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9734\/revisions\/9738"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9734"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9734"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9734"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}