Pollsters and Transparency

An op-ed piece by Pollster.com editor Mark Blumenthal, in yesterday’s New York Times, brought up an interesting point about the transparency of political polls. I would like to take his piece a step further.

Blumenthal feels that political polls provide too little background information, such as whether live or recorded interviewers were used, or the demographic makeup of their sample. These factors can make a big difference in the accuracy of a poll.

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Blumenthal feels that more transparency would make polls more accurate, because pollsters wouldn’t cut corners so much, and people could analyze the polls better.

Blumenthal, a polling reporter, couldn’t get data about the Iowa caucuses from many pollsters, and the data he did receive, he says, was incomplete or “severely delayed.”

If an insider like Blumenthal can’t get the info, how can citizens, ordinary journalists, and good government organizations?

I feel that political polls have become an important part of political campaigns as well as political policy. Pollsters themselves, such as Hillary Clinton’s adviser Mark Penn, have become extremely important figures in the making of policy and campaigns.

Although polls are not part of government, they have become such a basic part of the political system that I think it’s time to consider including them in Freedom of Information and Sunshine laws.

Pollsters make their living off of government, and what they publish affects elections and policy decisions. Therefore, they should be required to provide information about their polls within the same framework as government officials. They have become so entwined with government, that they should be required to be as transparent as government.

I don't know if this could be legally required, considering First Amendement free speech issues, but it could certainly be discussed and, perhaps, an agreement could be reached whereby pollsters accepted Freedom of Information rules for themselves and agreed to allow Freedom of Information bodies to consider disputes involving requests for information to pollsters.

Robert Wechsler
Director of Research-Retired, City Ethics

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