Tag Archives: surveys

Poltical Online Survey Dangers..

I would like to remind my friends that Online Surveys to determine if you are Liberal or Conservative, or which Politicians you are aligned with, can be misleading. Even worse, it can be used as a ploy to focus you on a particular candidate or group of candidates that the website wants you to “think” you agree with more. Always be skeptical and sometimes answer differently to see what the results might be.

For example, in a survey I just took for the Florida Governor Race.
There are several questions that don’t have Alex Sink’s answers.

This causes an unfair bios toward Richard Scott, where either he is “For” the option selected, however she does not show For or Against that option.

Let me try to explain:
Question #5: “Assault weapons..legal/illegal?” You select if you are For or Against a ban. The survey then shows which candidate you are aligned with on that question and also your percentage alignment on all questions.

This question doesn’t have Alex Sink’s answer. So..
If you are for a Ban; then no one is aligned with your view and the vote is ignored, giving bigger weight to the remaining questions.
If you are against a Ban, only Richard Scott gets the vote, giving more weight to him.
If Alex was pro-gun, she does not get credit that both candidates agree with you.
If Alex was anti-gun, she gets no credit that she agrees with you.

This was not just one little mistake.
In the survey, almost every way I tried; I always agreed mostly with Rick. This was because several of Alex’s answers were either aligned with Rick or it showed no answer.
Not that Alex Sink doesn’t have an answer; you can easily Google it. Her missing answers from the survey; simply skews the results, leading you into thinking she is against whichever opinion you have selected about Assault weapons yourself.

So be careful everyone.