Posted on 10/14/2008 7:35:28 PM PDT by markomalley
PBS is learning a hard lesson about conducting online polls relating to hot-button political issues. In early September, following coverage of Republican Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin on the television program NOW, the broadcaster launched an online poll asking viewers whether or not she was qualified for the office. A massive campaign to influence the poll soon ensued, with groups from both the right and the left vying to tip the scales for or against Palin.
Blogs ratcheted up interest, with those on the right questioning the impartiality of PBS. A common theme: Why wasn't there a similar PBS poll questioning the qualifications of Democrat VP candidate Joe Biden? Bloggers, message boards, and email threads urged supporters to flood the poll with partisan votes. One comment thread on Free Republic documented how the vote swung from 35% "yes"/64% "no" to an even matchup in the space of five hours on Sept. 16.
PBS was clearly caught off guard by the massive response to the Sarah Palin poll and the accusations of liberal bias (which spilled over to other broadcasters that had nothing to do with the poll, including NPR). On the question of bias, PBS suggested there was nothing wrong with the poll question. The PBS ombudsman said he was "with" NOW's executive producer, who claimed "We take care to make sure that the wording of the question is not leading or biased." A few days later, the same producer explained how PBS had been forced to implement a cookies-based system that prevented users from voting more than once from a single computer.
Now that the poll is more than a month old, and PBS has a new system in place to restrict cheating, has interest in the issue died down? Not quite. New blog posts and email campaigns are still popping up, urging people to take part. And, the system is still overwhelmed, judging by this morning's error messages (see inset) and the funny math on the results page -- 49% for + 49% against + 0% undecided does not equal 100%.
FR in the news ping!
free republic was mentioned on the front page of the nyt the other day,
negatively, of course.
I’m not a fan of loading polls. Leave that to the DUng beetles.
Can't question the official ministry of socialist propaganda now can we.
What that means is the little fruitcake ferries who own and operate NYT are reading FR ~ probably to get a heads up on the real news.
It would be better to invalidate their poll by anti-Freeping by voting the socialist line so the poll looks obviously manipulated - by the left.
WRONG!
Why wasn't there a similar PBS poll questioning the qualifications of Barack Hussein Obama?
Jim Lehrer (Disgraced PBS, Democrat): "At PBS we ignored that the top Palin Troopergate Investigator was a Phony Marine
just like we ignore the daily good news and, of course, our own financial entanglements.
Now, how many of Gwen Ifill's book on Obama's glorious upcoming-for-certain January 2009 Inauguration would you like?"
Cookies? Can't you just delete them and vote again? I don't do that, but shouldn't they get your IP address to make sure you don't vote more than once from the same computer?
Which begs the question what if there are more friends or family who want to vote using the same computer?
I did a search on the poll and the left wing blogs are going berserk saying that those mean old right wingers could not win a poll on their beloved PBS so they are emailing everyone they know and giving the link to the poll. Went to look at it and it is rather suspicious that it is tied 49% to 49%.
PBS should have polled on whether OBAMA was qualified.
Palin has better qualifications than the Alinsky Marxist does.
Deleting the particular cookie is the easiest way. And you’re right, they could block you via your IP address. Apparently PBS’s site doesn’t, since this poll has been hammered for weeks, judging by the many threads about it.
One computer, one vote goes against the spirit of ACORN, right? :)
It would appear so. Both sides are going to be charging voter fraud here. I wish there were some tamperproof way to end this once and for all, apart from an RFID chip :-).
I just voted once, heck with trying to get around it. What will be will be.
Gotta love that harmless little Joyce Foundation sponsorship at the end of The News Hour.
| KNOWLES, TONY VIA TONY KNOWLES FOR US SENATE |
|||
| 10/19/2004 | 250.00 | 24021102957 | |
| OBAMA, BARACK VIA OBAMA FOR AMERICA |
|||
| 06/11/2007 | 750.00 | 27990256793 | |
| 09/29/2007 | 250.00 | 27931420154 | |
| 01/26/2008 | 500.00 | 28930635088 | |
| 05/06/2008 | 500.00 | 28931968821 | |
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