20 Ways To Critique a Political Poll

Dr. Philip N. Howard

Department of Communication

University of Washington

1. Who administered the poll?

2. Who paid for the poll?

3. Why was it done?

4. How many people were interviewed for the survey?

5. How were those people chosen?

6. What area (nation, state, region) or group (teachers, lawyers, Democratic voters) were these people chosen from?

7. Are the results based on the answers of all the respondents?

8. Who should have been interviewed and was not?

9. When was the poll done?

10. How were the interviews conducted?

11. Is this a dial-up, a mail-in, internet, or a subscriber poll?

12. What is the sampling error for the poll results?

13. What other mistakes might have skewed the results?

14. What questions were asked?

15. In what order were the questions asked?

16. What other polls have been done on this topic, and how are they different?

17. Can the poll really predict an outcome?

18. Was the poll part of a fund-raising effort?

19. Is the poll correct?

20. Is the poll worth reporting?

Adapted from Gawiser, S. R. and G. E. Witt (1998). Twenty Questions a Journalist Should Ask About Poll Results. The Practice of Social Research. E. Babbie. Belmont, CA, Wadsworth Publishing Company: A139-A144.