iPad Surveys
Android Surveys
Kiosk Surveys
Mobile Forms
Email Surveys
SMS Surveys
Website Surveys
Creating Surveys
Multilingual Surveys
Collecting Feedback
Closing Feedback Loop
Reporting & Analytics
NPS Dashboard & Reporting
Multiple Locations & Chains
Offline Device Tracking
APIs, Webhooks & Integrations
Healthcare
Education
Retail
Financial
Restaurants
Hotels
Customer Satisfaction
Patient Satisfaction
Employee Satisfaction
Net Promoter Score
Website Surveys
Feedback Form Templates
Integrations
The Ultimate NPS Guide
Survey Tips and Tricks
Blog and Insights
Survey Guides
Help Documentation
Customers
US opinion polls are favoring Clinton, could Trump really win despite this fact? Maybe, who knows.
Opinion polls are used and believed throughout the course of election campaigns by candidates. Also, they are believed by the media to see which candidates are ahead and who is likely to emerge victorious.
But sadly, the polls yet so far have been successful in the contrived shaping of public opinion rather than reflecting it. How can we say this so confidently? Let’s hear a story from the vault of erstwhile US Presidential elections.
In the 1948 Presidential election, the US opinion polls predicted certain victory for Republican Thomas E. Dewey. Without waiting for the official count of the votes, Chicago Daily Tribune on November 3, 1948, throughout the country proclaimed in their headlines, "Dewey Defeats Truman." The rest is history ... Harry S Truman was elected the 31st President of the United States.
Wondering how did that happen? Let’s dig deep.
It is hard to get a representative sample of the population to answer survey questions. Due to this most polls weigh their response data to match the expected composition of the electorate. Also, the methods used to collect poll responses lead to discrepancies in actual opinions of the electorate and rolled out opinion polls.
Majorly, there are 3 methods that are used to collect US opinion polls-
- Telephonic polls
- Online polls
- IVRs
But the problem with all these three is that they involve high human involvement. And it further leads to bias and miscommunication. Moreover many questions on the way polls are conducted through these methods arise such as-
- Do they ask the right questions?
- Are they manipulating the wording of questions to get the responses they want?
- And whom did they interview?
Some of the doubts are wrapped up in a mistrust of the political parties, marketers, and media giants that pay for the polls. Thus, for collecting US opinion polls a contemporary method is required. A method that can dig in the honest, unadulterated, genuine or near genuine opinion of the electorate.
The ideal polling technique for collecting honest public opinion
Creating the poll
With Zonka’s survey form builder, create customized, good-looking polling surveys.
- Monitor the tone and wordings of the polling questions. Make sure questions are drafted in a clear and neutral fashion.
- Avoid question wordings that will bias voters towards or away from their own particular point of view.
Collecting the poll
Collect opinions of the electorate as per their own convenience and personal space.
- SMS/ email links of web polls to the voters for collecting their opinion about the two presidential candidates.
- What differentiates average polls from good ones is the level of transparency. So, make sure the electorate can access the original source material.
- Add actual content of the poll to the website. Add the questions that were asked of participants, the dates during which the poll was done, the number of participants, and the sampling error.
Interpreting the poll
Save time, effort and money while interpreting results of the opinion polls.
- Zonka offers an Intuitive Web Interface which can be used for examining ongoing polling behavior. At the end of the opinion polling, results can be presented with the help of crucial reports and insights.
- One Click Reporting with Graphs and Insights enabling the real-time view of the voting behavior during the polling session.
- Zonka enables Comparative Reporting. Thus, a comparative analysis for US opinion poll results amongst each of the 50 US states and congressional districts can be drawn.
