Unfortunately, It Is Very Easy To Make A Poll Say Anything You Want It To

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On Sunday, Milwaukee radio station 620 WTMJ's website analyzed the new WPRI poll showing Governor Walker with a 43 percent approval rating.  The first thing that the story points out about the poll is that it oversamples Democrats and union households. 

The article points out some of the findings of the poll that were not immediately obvious:

"The poll says voters oppose Walker's budget plan by a 46% to 51% margin. But: An overwhelmingly majority -- 81% said that public employees should be required to contribute to their own pensions."

The article also points out that how you ask the question determines the answer:

"When asked whether they favored "limiting" public employees ability to negotiate over non-wage issues: the poll splits 47% in favor, 50% opposed. (That is within the margin of error.)
 
"When that question is changed to whether employees should be "stripped of their rights to collective bargaining," along with other loaded language, support drops to 32%."
The article posted the actual breakdown of the answers to a few of the questions asked.  Please follow the link above to see the details.  The poll results that were reported were really not an indication of the whole story.  Whenever we see a poll result reported, we need to remember to ask who was asked the questions and how the questions were worded.

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This page contains a single entry by Granny G published on March 8, 2011 1:51 PM.

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