Posted on 09/25/2008 9:13:54 PM PDT by BAW
The weekly online polls on “NOW on PBS” usually fetch votes in the thousands.
But a poll asking if Sarah Palin is qualified to be vice president touched a nerve - and drew tens of millions of votes.
And in the end, the hardest questions were being asked of “NOW on PBS” - a newsmagazine show on the public broadcasting network.
The Palin poll was posted earlier this month during the Republican National Convention after John McCain announced the Alaska governor as his running mate.
After the poll sparked intense lobbying by blogs on the left and the right, “NOW on PBS” came under fire for not asking the same about other candidates
“We were focusing on the one question that was timely at the time of the Republican convention because she’d just been introduced as his running mate,” Joel Schwartzberg, director of new media for “NOW on PBS,” said yesterday.
Schwartzberg said the Palin question was “very unbiased” but that people came “en masse” to vote. He said the poll was meant to measure enthusiasm and said no Web poll is scientific.
“NOW on PBS” also was criticized because the poll allowed people to vote more than once. Schwartzberg said PBS didn’t expect the poll “to take off as it did.”
When it realized people were voting more than once, a “cookies mechanism” was installed that allowed only one vote per person, Schwartzberg said.
John Siceloff, executive producer of “NOW on PBS,” issued a public letter Tuesday after receiving throngs of e-mails. Siceloff wrote that according to the single-voter numbers, 50 percent said Palin is qualified to be VP, while 48 percent said no.
I voted thrice
you know somebody could have written a program in about ten mninutes using a free online guide that could have put thousands of additional votes on one side or another .... there’s no way to know.
When will we see the poll on whether Biden is fit to be VP?
50 percent said Palin is qualified to be VP, while 48 percent said no.
LOL... I can’t remember how many times I voted in that poll myself! It was only YESTERDAY (after it being posted here at FR I don’t know how many times) that I finally got a notice when voting that said — your vote will only be counted once!
Too funny!
It’s easy to get past those “one vote cookie” polls. You just delete your browser cookies and it resets and you can vote again.
It isn’t rocket science.
Poll:
Is PBS just a shill for liberals?
Vote:
“Yes, every American realizes that”
or
“No, I’m a radical leftist and PBS is too conservative”
Browser cookies...what a concept! Nice to see PBS' programmers finally read up on the latest 1990s technology.
Internet polls are worthless. They are an OK place to vent, but that’s about it.
the point is, what were they doing running a biased poll like that to begin with .. the questions was offensive..
If it wasn’t rigged from the start, then PBS is slipping.
Oh, I know... I just had to laugh as it took them so long to figure it out!
Poll:
Should PBS lose public funding?
Vote:
“Yes, for once I’d like to see a few bucks back in my pocket.”
or
“No, conservatives are trying to hurt....THE CHILDREN.”
ROFL... exactly. :-)
“That’s what the election will be, 50% McCain, 48% Obama, 2% morons”
I would change it to 50% McCain, 48% morons, 2% other morons
There must be a mistake in your math. The 48% is too large to be a subset of the 2%.
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