Public policy advocates often hire pollsters to survey the electorate in support of an agenda they seek to promote. In almost every case the polls they commission reveal answers they like. Critics argue this is because pollsters often prompt respondents by wording questions in such a way to get desired answers.
A recent poll of Canadians on funding a major health care initiative supports this argument:
And yet, the same poll also found only 6 percent of those polled were “very familiar” with the report. Half the respondents knew little or nothing about the report on which the spending recommendation was based.
Similar affirmative responses were received in polls about increased defence spending, a $260-million upgrade of the Calgary Olympic facilities, ratifying the Kyoto accord, etc. In every case, pollsters found general support for an idea, based on little information with no information on the tradeoffs of more spending.
How credible are polls that ask people wish-list questions without asking for tradeoffs? The reason people don’t make trade-offs when polled is because pollsters don’t ask them to.
Source: Jeffrey Simpson, When They Poll the Know-Nothings, Toronto Globe and Mail, December 11, 2002.
http://www.globeandmail.com/servlet/ArticleNews/PEstory/TGAM/20021211/COSIMP11/Health/health/health_temp/3/3/7/
For more on Government & Politics http://www.ncpa.org/iss/gov
FMF Policy Bulletin/18 February 2003
