This title explores the US election system, including the history of the electoral college and voting rights, modern barriers to voting, and ongoing efforts to reform the system. Features include a glossary, references, websites, source notes, and an index. Aligned to Common Core Standards and correlated to state standards. Essential Library is an imprint of Abdo Publishing, a division of ABDO.
This update of a lively, first-of-its-kind study of polling misfires and fiascoes in U.S. presidential campaigns takes up pollsters’ failure over the decades to offer accurate assessments of the most important of American elections. Lost in a Gallup tells the story of polling flops and failures in presidential elections since 1936. Polls do go bad, as outcomes in 2020, 2016, 2012, 2004, and 2000 all remind us. This updated edition includes a new chapter and conclusion that address the 2020 polling surprise and considers whether polls will get it right in 2024. As author W. Joseph Campbell discusses, polling misfires in presidential elections are not all alike. Pollsters have anticipated tight elections when landslides have occurred. They have pointed to the wrong winner in closer elections. Misleading state polls have thrown off expected national outcomes. Polling failure also can lead to media error. Journalists covering presidential races invariably take their lead from polls. When polls go bad, media narratives can be off-target as well. Lost in a Gallup encourages readers to treat election polls with healthy skepticism, recognizing that they could be wrong.
How can a public opinion poll of only 1,500 Americans accurately represent the entire population? Asher demystifies this and other polling issues with clear descriptions, colorful anecdotes, and such up-to-date examples as polls concerning doctor-assisted suicide and NATO expansion. He explains how the wording and ordering of the survey questions, and the interviewer's techniques profoundly affect the response the pollster gets. Public opinion polls are pervasive, influencing discourse and decision-making on practically every issue of public life. Yet they are poorly understood and often misused. Asher explores how polls are constructed, conducted, and interpreted - and what role they have in influencing the very attitudes they measure. He discusses the use of polls in campaign politics and media coverage of public opinion, and he guides readers to make their own judgments.
In the 2000 national elections, $100 million was spent on campaign polling alone. A $5 billion industry from Gallup to Zogby, public opinion polling is growing rapidly with the explosion of consumer-oriented market research, political and media polling, and controversial Internet polling. By many measures from editorial cartoons to bumper stickers we hate pollsters and their polls. We think of polling as hopelessly flawed, invasive of our privacy, and just plain annoying. At times we even argue that polling is illegal, unconstitutional, and downright un-American. Yet we crave the information polling provides. What do other Americans think about gun control? School vouchers? Airline performance?
This hard-hitting and engaging examination of polls and American politics asks an essential question: do polls contribute to the vitality of our democracy or are they undermining the health of our political system? Leading scholars address several key issues such as how various types of polls affect democracy, the meaning attributed to polling data by citizens and the media, the use of polls by presidents, and how political elites respond—or do not respond—to public polls. The contributors assert that while polls tread a fine line between informing and manipulating the public, they remain valuable so long as a robust democracy obliges its political leaders to respond to the expressed will of the people.
How well can polls measure public opinion? Should government policies follow majority opinion? Do polls influence elections? Can there be polls under a dictatorship? Recent elections throughout the world have made these issues ever more crucial. "Polls and the Awareness of Public Opinion, "initially published under the title "Silent Politics, "is the first book to look upon polls and the awareness of poll results as forces that influence public opinion. It is a penetrating assessment of the uses of polls, their misuses, and the absurdities carried out in their name. Bogart argues that predictions based on polls can be misleading since they reflect a transient stage in a public opinion that is constantly and often rapidly changing.
Due to the historic unusualness of the recent 2016 presidential election, many are unsure of what to think of the political climate in the United States. Many of the well respected polling organizations were incorrect about the outcome of the election, and this has led many to question what the issues people find most relevant when voting are. One of the reasons they were so off is because many experts didn't believe someone could act the way Donald Trump acted, and still win. Of course, they were wrong and he is not the current President. In hopes of answering why his behavior didn't cost him the election, the purpose of this study is to determine the factors that are most important to people when voting for elected officials. The factors that I focused specifically were social issues, economic issues, and international issues. I created the survey in the hope that I would be able to determine which issues are most important to each respondent. It will also help to see whether people tend to agree with one political party on all of these issues, or perhaps people support issues from opposing parties and choose the party that shares their opinion on their most important issue. This study should help to answer which of these factors is most important in driving people to vote for candidates, and whether these important factors are different for people of differing wealth, age, education, sex, and political identity. The hope is that this can provide a better understanding in the future to what issues are important to these various groups and which issues are most likely to encourage voting. This would mean fewer surprises in predictive polling data for future elections.
From The Gallup Organization-the most respected source on the subject-comes a fascinating look at the importance of measuring public opinion in modern society. For years, public-opinion polls have been a valuable tool for gauging the positions of American citizens on a wide variety of topics. Polling applies scientific principles to understanding and anticipating the insights, emotions, and attitudes of society. Now in POLLING MATTERS: Why Leaders Must Listen to the Wisdom of the People, The Gallup Organization reveals: What polls really are and how they are conducted Why the information polls provide is so vitally important to modern society today How this valuable information can be used more effectively and more...
Public opinion pools have become staples of contemporary political reporting, and most national news organizations have sophisticated in-house polling operations. The increased number and quality of polls conducted and reported by the press give the public a chance to help see the agendas of campaigns and define the meaning of elections. Yet competition and the need for fast responses to events often lead news organizations to misuse polls in a way that diminishes rather than enhances democracy. Polls can shape public opinion as well as describe it; they can set the news agenda and influence the coverage of political events in ways hostile to a constructive dialogue between citizens and their leaders. In this volume, media specialist and well-known reporters provide a comprehensive survey of the problems and possibilities of polling by media organizations in the 1990s and beyond. Thomas Mann and Gary Orren analyze the strengths and weaknesses of media polls and their impact on American politics. Everett Carll Ladd and John Benson discuss the extraordinary growth of polling in news organizations for the past two decades. Kathleen Frankovic addresses the tension between the needs of news organizations for quick results and the need to preserve the standards of survey research. Henry Brady and Gary Orren examine the most serious methodological problems with news media polls. Michael Kagay explores the sources of well-publicized variability in poll findings. Michael Traugott considers the complicated question of how polls influence the public and whether their effects are benign or harmful. Finally, E. J. Dionne, Jr. examines media organizations' obsession with polls and the impact polls have on reporters. The authors offer recommendations for improving the conduct and use of media polls so that citizens can make better informed and enlightened decisions about the public agenda.
Examines elections at the federal, state, and local levels, covering such topics as the use of policical consultants, polling, campaign finance reform, and partisan politics.
