US political pundits turn spotlight on pollsters

US-- The Huffington Post – the website of columnist and political commentator Arianna Huffington – is aiming to take pollsters in the 2008 presidential race “from under the radar to under the microscope”.

‘The Polling Project' invites anyone who has been contacted by opinion pollsters to report on their experience by completing a short online survey detailing the time, nature and content of the polling call.

In a blog post yesterday, Huffington asks whether polls are measuring the election or driving it. “It's a question traditional media outlets steadfastly refuse to investigate,” she writes. “Perhaps they've grown too accustomed to the ease of offering up the latest ‘who's leading the horserace?' story.”

Co-sponsors of the effort include several other political news sites and blogs, as well as the Center for Independent Media and Personal Democracy Forum.

“Our methods are simple and direct, and stress transparency – the key ingredient missing from a lot of polling data,” writes Huffington.

Nancy Mathiowetz, president of the American Association for Public Opinion Research (AAPOR), and also an occasional Huffington Post blogger, intends to respond on behalf of the association in a post of her own on Monday.

She told Research: “This all adds to the disclosure of who's doing what kind of methodology, so from that perspective AAPOR's thrilled. But we strongly advocate for the full release of methodology by the people doing the polls, so really we'd rather they didn't feel they had to do it this way.”

Mathiowetz is also concerned about reaction to such a campaign from those who already mistrust polling organisations. “I see some bloggers using this to turn against pollsters, and as a condemnation of everyone that uses polls,” she said.

The Huffington Post's initiative follows the ‘Disclosure Project' carried out earlier this year by Mark Blumenthal, a member of AAPOR's executive council, through his site Pollster.com. Blumenthal asked all firms who had published polls in Iowa this year to disclose details of their methodology and samples. Although the disclosure rate from AAPOR members was good, firms carrying out three quarters of polls failed to provide information when asked.

Author: Robert Bain