Should there be Polling during elections ?

surhuntsalot · #1 10-17-2017, 09:51 AM

I light of recent election results, my wife and I were discussing if Polls should be allowed during elections. We agreed they should not be allowed and broadcast...

If a politician is running, he should run on merit , and stick to his platform, rather than adjusting behaviour according to Polls. The same for voters, base your vote on information, and not jump on a bandwagon of support simply based on numbers...

HoytCRX32 · #2 10-17-2017, 10:30 AM

Lately, polls seem to ne consistently wrong, be it municipal, provincial, federal....same down in The States....

surhuntsalot · #3 10-17-2017, 10:51 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by HoytCRX32

Lately, polls seem to ne consistently wrong, be it municipal, provincial, federal....same down in The States....

Part of our our point... People possibly basing decisions on wrong or skewed polling information ...

HoytCRX32 · #4 10-17-2017, 11:42 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by surhuntsalot

Part of our our point... People possibly basing decisions on wrong or skewed polling information ...

Yeah, it sometime seems that pollsters are TRYING to sway votes

ReconWilly · #5 10-17-2017, 12:12 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by HoytCRX32

Yeah, it sometime seems that pollsters are TRYING to sway votes

They would never do that...

Okotokian · #6 10-20-2017, 02:32 PM

Agree. Let's get rid of the one time that politicians actually hear, consider, and care about what the public thinks.

And if it looks like the NDP might get in again, don't tell me. I'd rather not feel forced to go out and vote for the alternative.

79ford · #7 10-20-2017, 09:45 PM

Polls may motivate more people to go out and vote which is good. When voter turnout is 50-60% or less, less than a quarter of the population can vote in a majority government. You see some one is up in the polls and you don't like them you might go out and vote or some one you like is down and you go cast another vote in.

On the other hand voting should be organic, no media polling, just info, no live vote counts either.

CBintheNorth · #8 10-21-2017, 12:00 AM

Couldn't agree more. I've been saying the same thing for years.
Too many people are too lazy to educate themselves on the party platforms and then vote according to the winning team or the under-dog, depending on how they perceive things should happen. No bearing on ideology what so ever.
Should be totally illegal during an election.

CBintheNorth · #9 10-21-2017, 12:04 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Okotokian

Agree. Let's get rid of the one time that politicians actually hear, consider, and care about what the public thinks.

And if it looks like the NDP might get in again, don't tell me. I'd rather not feel forced to go out and vote for the alternative.

Nothing wrong with AN HONEST AND UNBIASED poll outside of an election to let a party know if the people are happy with their performance.
A biased poll used as an election tool to sway votes I have a problem with.

slough shark · #10 10-21-2017, 05:58 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Okotokian

Agree. Let's get rid of the one time that politicians actually hear, consider, and care about what the public thinks.

And if it looks like the NDP might get in again, don't tell me. I'd rather not feel forced to go out and vote for the alternative.

The only downside is they go out and say what the polls suggest they say and once they get in they do whatever they want to

densa44 · #11 10-21-2017, 07:43 AM

First of all politicians don't have their own ideas they support what the voters want, this is usually a good thing. "A politician will say what ever he thinks will get him elected" (this is a good thing).

In the days before polls that were in the news paper, I was in grade 7 in Ottawa and there was a general election in full swing and our social studies teacher asked the class to pick the winners in all 265 ridings (The PCs won I think 208 seats under John Diefenbaker) and the students got them all correct!

That means that not only were the students well up on Canadian politics, we were but that polling was going on and their parents had access to the information.

You won't stop polling but you can restrict access to the information. You will go back to pipe smoking college professors telling you what they think.

BTW if the pollsters spent more and tried to do a better job they would get more accurate results, for example everyone says that they always vote but we know that they don't.

The present government (NDP) is using a form of polling to find out where their support lies, in the old days they used to issue "white papers" now they do surveys, eg. daylight saving time.

The next provincial election is not a foregone conclusion by a long shot, stay tuned.

Sundancefisher · #12 10-21-2017, 08:07 AM

No. Nenshi must of planned the bad polls cause all it did was drive more of his supporters out. Had mainstreet done nothing the results would of been different.

CaberTosser · #13 10-21-2017, 08:08 AM

I find it curious that they get enough people to answer the polls in the first place, when I get an unsolicited call that asks me about my political preferences the computer gets hung up upon. When I recieve any call where I'm left saying "Hello?" to a dead-air auto-dialer while the call center staffer is getting cued up to the fact I've answered I will hang up. It's not my job to be waiting for the attention of someone who is calling me, and especially for the attention of those who should not be calling me in the first place (Do Not Call list)

260 Rem · #14 10-21-2017, 08:49 AM

Banning election related polling is an affront to the democratic process. What’s the problem given that we have the ability to discriminate and make choices?