Another Telephone Poll

I'm starting a new blog on this one, because it touches on issues raised in different several different blogs.Got another telephone poll about the CH election. I didn’t have anything to write with at the time, so I apologize if my memory gets anything wrong. Along those lines, the questions that I am regurgitating here are not necessarily in the same order as asked, just as best as I can remember. No candidate was identified as sponsoring the poll, but at then end it was disclosed that the poll was conducted by Tom Jensen's group http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/ . The call was completely automated. Press 1 for this, 2 for that, and so on. Sometimes a no opinion (or some similar don’t know) option was given, sometimes not. The question would be repeated if no answer was given within a certain time.Questions included: Do you plan on voting? There are four mayoral candidates, who are you planning on voting for, with each listed alphabetically. At this point, I was asked some demographic questions about age, race, gender, party affiliation, and whether I considered myself liberal/conservative. The candidates for town council were then listed alphabetically. Who are you most likely to vote for was asked. Next was who are you next most likely to vote for, with if you only plan to vote for one press ___ as an option. Since I didn’t say I was only voting for one, the question was then repeated for third and fourth choices, with an option to say only voting for so many as an option each time.Here’s where I really forget the sequence of questions. Do I have a favorable/unfavorable/no opinion of Greenbridge? Do I have a favorable/unfavorable/no opinion of 54 East? Is it more important that a candidate be pro biz or pro environment (pitted against each other) or no opinion? Am I in favor/not/no opinion about the IFC shelter move (I can’t remember if the word shelter was actually used)? Is panhandling a problem? For the panhandling question, there was a range of options spanning about 4 or 5 options from a synonym for horrendous down to none, and I can’t remember if no opinion was an option. Would I like to see more restrictive panhandling regulations? Can’t remember if no opinion was an option.Are you more/less likely/no difference to vote for a candidate endorsed by the Sierra Club? Are you more/less likely/no difference to vote for a candidate endorsed by the Indy? Are you more/less likely/no difference to vote for a gay candidate?There was some question about how much I like downtown Chapel Hill. How often do I go downtown? Is parking a problem? Would I like to see CH be more like Durham? Would I like for CH and Carrboro merge? Would I like to see a loser (or something similar, but not “fifth place finisher”) from the election appointed to the vacant TC seat? I do not remember a question about which version of the TC should do the appointing. Is it important to me to have a black member on the TC? Do I have a favorable/unfavorable/no opinion view of Kevin Foy? Do I have a favorable/unfavorable/no opinion view of Mark Kleinschmidt? Do I have a favorable/unfavorable/no opinion view of Matt Czajkowski? Do I approve/not approve/no opinion of the direction of the TC?There was a question about what I think the population of CH should be __ years from now, no option was not an option. There was some question about whether I would like to see services cut so taxes won’t go up (with no specific services being mentioned). And there was a question about whether I thought taxes were too high.That’s all I can remember.

Issues: 

Comments

Anne, you need to edit the formatting on this.  Updated edit:  Thanks Anne or Ruby for working on the formatting.

Bugged me too, but it took me a couple of tries to find the correct button.

What you've recorded here matches what I remember from the call.  I too didn't have abilty to write it all down.

Those are a very intelligent set of questions. PPP has a well deserved high national reputation, glad to see them working Chapel Hill!

I think there was a general question on approval about dense development as a trend or policy. Also one on funding public art. I can't remember if there was one on VOE.

My husband recieved this automated call and it sounds like you all remembered many of the questions.  He said the system did not allow you to move ahead  unless you answered each question.  We surmise it is a data gathering preliminary to a phone banking operation for Matt C's campaign.    --Julie

Not sure I'm following.  Won't all of the candidates be trying to get the vote out Tuesday?  Think we can break 15% this year?

I think she was suggesting (erroneously) that it might have been a so-called 'voter identification poll.'  This also seems to have been generally the kind of thing that Mia Burroughs was concerned about - ie that the polling results might not be anonymous.  Voter ID polls are intended to identify likely supporters of one particular candidate and are then followed up with get-out-the-vote phonebanks (or canvas or what have you) on election day - ie the voters who are unfavorable for the candidate do not get reminded about voting.However, I've never heard of anyone using such a technique in a local race in Orange County.  And I think generally that style of electoral advocacy is not thought to be all that effective a use of resources - a lot of effort with typically marginal returns.

I can't find the link to it now, but I saw a very interesting study on GOTV efforts recently that said the way to make them effective was to ask folks exactly when they are going to vote.  Not just a generic "please vote" or even "are you going to vote tomorrow" (that was only very slightly helpful), but making them think through (visualize) exactly when and how they would go do it had significant increases.

No it is a poll for the public interest that will be released over the course of the next week or two starting with the Mayoral and Town Council numbers on Monday.

I got the call about 45 minutes ago.  I answered a lot of questions, probably almost all of them according to the descritpions here, but when it started the question about downtown parking the phone cut off.  It was their phone that cut off I assume since mine has never done it before and since the clock telling how long the phone call is on my phone kept running.  I just held it until I started getting the loud buzzing noise that indicates you've been cut off. I just hope the questions I did answer get counted.

I had virtually the same experience as Jose - the call cut off.  I remember answering the question about about downtown parking but I don't remember if that was the last question or not. Tom, can you explain why that happened and how the data from those calls is handled?  I'm also curious about the privacy of the results - I really am just curious as I obviously could have hung up at any time if I was uncomfortable about it.  It seems like the results can be tracked by phone number and given the demographic info asked for the answers could be connected to a particular perosn.  Linda Convissor

I was called about 5pm earlier today.  I hung with it til the end.  I think that it was Tom Jensen's recorded voice asking the questions.  The questions were fair and impartial; this was not a push poll.  Of course, some of the questions were too simple, e.g., do you have a favorable opinion of the 54 East project?  There was no way to answer, as I would have, that while I support most of the project, I think that the next-to-the-road building should not have been built or should have been set back.  I look forward to reading the poll's results.  I also wish that the speaker had revealed who was paying for the poll.Tom? 

No one paid for it, we did the poll for general interest, and all the results will be released publicly over the course of the next week or so.

 

Community Guidelines

By using this site, you agree to our community guidelines. Inappropriate or disruptive behavior will result in moderation or eviction.

 

Content license

By contributing to OrangePolitics, you agree to license your contributions under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 3.0 United States License.

Creative Commons License

 
Zircon - This is a contributing Drupal Theme
Design by WeebPal.