Former Canadian prime minister John Diefenbaker once commented that polls were for dogs.
He was right except for all the parts where he was wrong.
Polling, or surveys, are imprecise because there are just too many human variables at play to provide any one with an exact picture of how a political campaign is going for the candidates involved.
That said, despite those imperfections, information is still information, and it’s how one deciphers it, or interprets it that gives sometimes chaotic information some meaning.
It sort of reminds me a little bit of the emergence of radar back in World War II. In the early days it was extremely spotty and imprecise, and often produced false returns easily misunderstood as meaning something else. But it was still better than having no radar at all.
I’m going to see what happens if I launch a pre-election poll canvassing the level of candidate support in the Renfrew municipal election scheduled for October 26th.
I’m anticipating some messiness, that is if people even bother to take the poll at all. And again, there will be so many variables to consider since people are people and you never really know if all of them are going to approach the same task with he same level of integrity.
So I’m going to label it a Reader Poll, that way making sure that everyone knows that I’m not necessarily going to extrapolate the results as having any direct bearing on election day. And as well, I’m not exactly going to make a big deal out of anything it produces because it’s obviously going to be one of the least scientific polls one can manufacture and execute.
For one thing, the numbers will be problematic, as in I don’t have any. How many people do I need to participate to make this a worthwhile effort? How many responses will make it worthwhile for me to analyze and report the data? I don’t have a huge following on my site, or blog, to begin with, but nevertheless, I’m resolved to at least make the effort and see what it comes back like.
But I do know that if I don’t do it, I’ll never know how it might have worked out.
I’ll have a link to the poll situated at the top of each morning post going forward.
I’m hoping everyone plays nice and takes the survey precisely once.
