Polls and Surveys: Not often a many-splendored thing

     As mentioned in my 300th blog, this blog is transitioning to a substack newsletter format. If you would like to continue getting my blogs/newsletters, please click here and sign up for a free subscription (if you have money to spare, you are welcome to get a paid subscription). Thank you for reading these. I hope they are of interest, and will continue to be of interest.

     It seems that election season is usually the time for a plethora (so many that a person gets sick of them) of polls. Surveys happen all the time, for many reasons, but polls usually happen for elections. Why? Polls are aimed at the future. What do you want to happen in the future? Do you want a nuclear power station in your town? Do you want to vote for Candidate A or do you want to vote for Candidate B (occasionally the poll will be written such that a choice for “neither” is allowed)?

     A survey is more of a gathering of information about what is happening right now. Do you put on your left sock first or your right sock first (Japan loves surveys of this nature)? How do you feel about the economy? Do you think that your local new pattern of “100-year” storms every four years is caused by climate change? How many pets do you have at home?

     Like weather forecasts, it is often true that polls don’t get it right (surveys don’t also but that’s for a different subset of reasons). In fact, many times polls are used in the opposite manner. They are manipulated to create a desired output, recognizing that there is a “winner effect” where people have a tendency to change their minds in order to be part of the “winning” side.

     Even when a poll is not deliberately manipulated to give a desired output, there are problems.

1. The questions must be created such that there is no inherent bias or assumption

2. The polls must be filled out (or answered) by a representative group of people

3. The people answering must have full anonymity — otherwise they may not give their honest answers.

     It is more difficult than one might think to keep bias or assumptions out of questions. “How often do you beat your spouse?” is rather blatant (though I suspect it has occurred on more than one poll). “How bad do you think the economy is?” has the same inherent assumption (that the economy is bad) as the spousal question but may not be as obvious.

     Many polls are multiple choice. But desired responses do not often align completely with one of the choices. The potential answers often have their own bias and assumption. If none of the answers matches what is wanted as the reply then there is a choice — don’t answer or choose the “closest”. But if your desired answer is the opposite of all of the listed possible answers then no answer is all you can do — and the poll will not reflect your opinion.

     It is very hard to get a representative number of people. For elections, they not only need to represent the variety of people voting in appropriate percentages but they must also be people who are going to vote. Younger generations often do not use phones for audible conversations so a phoned poll will be out-of-balance with leaving out many younger people (hopefully active voters). Although becoming less a problem as the technology continues to be more established, older people may be left out of polls if the polls are done via online methods. So, do both. But then the “middle” group may be over-represented.

     Legal voters don’t necessarily all feel comfortable in thinking about more complex issues in languages other than their home language. But polls (and surveys) cannot be created in ALL potential languages and polls are more unlikely to be answered if there is any struggle to complete them.

     We have many different physical, economic, ethnographic, and other areas of the country. Each has their own history and perspective so all must be represented in the polls. Very difficult.

     Finally, anonymity. In many countries, honest answers can be dangerous if the answers can be attributed to specific people. But even in honest democracies, attributed answers may result in unpleasant results (such as being bombarded with pleas for election money) if the person can be connected with the response. The answer may not be private within the house (or other physical location) and there may be intimidation or pressure to answer in a way not truly desired.

     Surveys can have the same types of problems but, since they deal with current existing issues, can change without causing the “chicken and egg” situations.

     The bottom line is that polls can only be treated as potential approximations. Their results should not be used to guide a person’s actions or expectations. If the poll results reinforce your opinions then be pessimistic and if they are contrary to your opinions then try even harder.

The poor are from Earth; the born rich are from Jupiter

     Once upon a time (now over 25 years ago), John Gray wrote a book called "Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus". The primary precept was that most men have very different communication styles, history/usage of words, emotional needs, and modes of behavior from that of most women. Of course, the book was only an abridged version -- the full explanation of such is actually a multi-volume series that competes in length with, or exceeds, a set of the old Encyclopedia Britannica and goes out-of-date within weeks.
     Similar to George Washington's "cherry tree", it is highly unlikely that Marie Antoinette ever said "let them eat cake". But the concept that people might not have enough to eat was incomprehensible to her. Food had always just appeared (it was never visibly raised, purchased, transported, or prepared) for her. From the viewpoint of the poor, they felt they were being mocked and could not conceive of anyone being unaware of the pain, and work, needed for daily survival.
     Such a clash brought about the French Revolution and earnest use of the guillotine. The disjoint environments of the lowest class from the higher classes in Russia brought about the Bolshevik Revolution (followed by the Communist Revolution). In the United States, being a division of income rather than social class, it brought about the Great Depression.
     In an explicit class system (such as Britain, or India, or many other areas) each social class is clearly trained in expectation of their eventual roles. Certain language, and usage, is taught from an early age. Clothing has its clear do's and don'ts and has its own (usually unwritten -- but passed along from generation to generation) appropriateness depending on the situation. Most important, accepted behavior within the social class, as well as accepted behavior between levels of the social classes, are firmly indoctrinated. These social class behaviors and expectations are not directly associated with wealth but the lack of sufficient money can sometimes cause situations where it is difficult to properly meet the expectations of the social class.
     Movement between social class levels is very difficult. There is certainly a lot of explicit exclusion ("you cannot interact with them") but much of it is a severe discomfort which results from not having been raised from birth into the sub-societal expectations. Always a "fish out of water" and never fully accepted.
     In the case of income classes, movement is possible -- although presently becoming more and more difficult. Once again, however, if a person has never been an active part of an income class, it is a different world for them. We have heard millionaire politicians make statements very parallel to the mythical "let them eat cake" (in particular, not knowing how much a gallon of milk costs, the cost of rent in a local city, or how living costs are paid).
     If you have never been involuntarily hungry and have never worried about whether there will be food to eat then it is not a concept that is easily understood. If health care has been always available and never questioned then the idea of others not having health care is not understood. In even more severe form, if one has never even wondered how they have food, clothing, vacations, houses, and so forth then the innate assumption is that is true for everyone. Not only is it difficult them to understand -- but many fall back into the false assumption that "it must be their fault".
     Note that people who HAVE moved between income classes ("rags to riches" or "lost everything") can have a direct understanding of those income classes that they have been an active part of. People BORN within an income class have to deliberately self-educate (being part of the Peace Corps for a couple of years might help a lot for the wealthy to have some relevant experience) to understand other income classes.
     In the case of democratically elected governmental representatives, it is important to bypass the advertising, and campaign snapshots, and remember that they are there to REPRESENT you -- born millionaires (or born billionaires) will be severely crippled in the ability to understand, and represent, the general non-wealthy masses. Allowing non-representative people to represent the voters is a CHOICE and must be remembered as such. If you want your representatives to represent you, then you must choose people who understand, and have experienced, the problems that they need to address.

Elections: Why does Money Matter?

  Originally published May 29, 2017

    In the United States, we have just finished a major election cycle but elections never actually end. There are "special elections" which are held to fill positions that are vacated -- whether from causes of illness or death or that of being shifted to another position, either elected or appointed. There are local elections and state elections and special issue elections. And, there is the continuous preparation for the next election cycle.

     During any of these, unless you are remarkably successful at making yourself invisible, you will be approached by one campaign or another (sometimes both sides, or multiple candidates) to make a donation. And, if you do make a donation, you may feel assured that you will be approached again ... and again ... and again. In the age of electronic distribution of information, this may well often take the form of social media postings and/or electronic mail. Always a crisis. If the polls are "up" then this is a time to solidify the lead. If the polls are "down" then it is desperate for more money to combat the positions of the other candidates or supporters or opposers of issues.

     Money, money, money. Why in the world does it matter? It certainly should NOT matter -- an election should not go to the highest bidder within a democracy. Yet, except in a relatively small portion of elections, the person/issue that spends the most money is likely to win. Why should this be so?

     To delve into that answer, we first need to remember that what we call a "democracy" is almost always actually a "representative democracy". In other words, we do not vote on bills, or articles of government (we sometimes do get to vote on issues or referendum) -- we vote for people whom we trust to represent us. These people are supposed to have similar views and opinions to the majority of the voters who elected them.

     This is not easy. Even in the 1800 United States Census, there were counted as being 5,308,483 people (including slaves) in the United States. With 106 Representatives, that means that each Representative, on average, was to present the points of view of 50,080 individual people. (Of course, not all of those 5,308,483 people could vote -- but they were still supposed to be represented.) There were sixteen states, so there were 32 Senators -- giving a ratio of an average of 165,890 people represented by each Senator.

     So, we see that, even in 1800, there were too many people per representative for the people to know them well. (This is also true about the Electors who were appointed or elected to represent the people at the Electoral College -- another potential blog.) So, how to know? (Note also that, at present, each Representative represents approximately 740,000 people and each Senator an average of 3.2 million people -- so the ratio has not improved over time.)

     There are two basic needs for someone to be considered appropriate to represent people. The first is clear, although not necessarily obvious, and that is that her, or his, name must be known and recognized for which to vote. The second is that there must be a perceived agreement of values and judgement such that this person would be whom we would choose.

     On the first area, the requirements of the present are similar to that of 1800. Their names are known because they are talked about. George Washington, John Adams, and Thomas Jefferson were probably "household names" due to participation in the various needs of the drive for Independence. Later Presidents (and the opposing candidates) were not necessarily known from the American Revolution but they were known for various events (wars, other political matters, etc.) that appeared in newspapers, or the neighbors talking about someone who knew someone who knew them. The media spread their names and the neighbors spread the opinions and discussions.

     Within the present day, the media has become much more important -- including what is referred to as the social media. Unfortunately (in my opinion), full and frank discussion with neighbors is much less likely. These are methods of spreading the name.

     They are also methods for providing information about the candidates. Not necessarily truthful information but information. There are two general methods of getting information -- "push" and "pull". When people are being "push"ed information, they are receiving information from others who are interested in you receiving it. On the other hand, if you are "pull"ing information, you are in control of what information you want to receive and also you are in control of the sources. While it is completely possible that information that is "pull"ed from an information source is not accurate or truthful, there is control by the recipient both in the type of information and the various sources of information (and there should be multiple sources).

     OK. Now, what about money? Isn't that the core of this blog? Information is spread by the media. The media chooses to spread information because they think that people are inherently interested or because they are paid to do so. The first is called "free publicity" and every candidate attempts to get it (some are vastly more successful than others). Some, however, must be paid for -- bumper stickers, yard signs, lapel pins, and so forth. In addition, they may have either live (people -- sometimes paid and sometimes volunteer) or automated ('bot) banks of telephone lines to call people to pass the information they want to send. There are also events to which the candidates may travel to pass their words along "directly" to people. Note these are all "push" types of data transfer. And "push" rules the day in the case of elections. Sometimes, the amount of information becomes a bombardment with so many (often contradictory) items of information coming that the receiver just stops listening.

     What about "pull" information? Well, most candidates have campaign offices and campaign websites (presently -- none existed in 1800) and this lists the official positions of the candidates. However, like the "push" information, this is information that the candidates want you to have (truthful, not truthful, or in-between and misleading). In order to get information that the candidates do NOT want you to have, it is necessary to go on other websites and check other sources of information. When a claim is made, check that claim from multiple other sites. Check the government records for recorded votes on issues. Don't be particularly surprised if you find that the candidate's position on various issues differs from the way they vote.

     Is it surprising that most of the information spread by the candidate is of the "push" variety (only a limited amount of "pull" information publicly accessible to interested people)? Unfortunately, it should not be -- candidates want you to absorb (and believe) information that they want you to have. The only way that you can increase your chances of getting accurate information is to "pull" the information from many different sources. This takes time. This takes energy. And, most importantly, this takes an open mind -- which is often very difficult to maintain after all of the bombardments of the "push" information.

     So, in summary, most of the money goes for "push" information. The exact expenses include administrative, equipment, events, media, payroll, strategy & research, technology, travel, and others. The emphasis on "push" information means that they want you to base your decisions on the information that they give to you (including the information that their opposing candidates produce on them). It is not good to rely solely on "push" information but it is the reason that money makes such a huge difference -- the majority of people who vote rely mostly on this "push" information and money allows this to reach as many people as possible and as often as possible.

     If most people did their own research, then money needs would be limited to name recognition, "pull" sites for information, and a small amount of "push" money to allow people to see/hear/touch the candidate to make that closer feel. But "push" information rules -- and so does money.