STRAW VOTES.

Auckland Star, Volume LXX, Issue 192, 16 August 1939, Page 7

STRAW VOTES.

AMERICAN OPINION.

METHODS OF TESTING IT.

REMARKABLE ACCURACY.

In the United States, testing public opinion on the issues of the day and forecasting the results of elections have been carried to a remarkable degree of accuracy, savs a writer in the "Melbourne Age."

For more than 30 years "straw ballots," as they are called, have been conducted by American newspapers and periodicals, chiefly during election campaigns. and some of these ballots "came very close to the actual results revealed when the votes were counted. But straw ballots of this kind cannot be conducted on a scientific, statistical basis, because it is practically impossible for any newspaper or periodical to ascertain through its readers.- through mailing lists, and from names taken from directories, a reliable poll, representative of all grades of the community.

These straw ballots have, however,' led the way to the establishment of business organisations in the United States which specialise in the collection of statistical information on public feeling on questions of the day by means [of personal interviews with numerous representatives of all sections of the community. The two chief organisations of the kind are the American Institute of Public Opinion and that controlled by the monthly magazine "Fortune."

No Machinery Existing. In a recent issue of ."Harper's Magazine" Mr. Jerome H. Spingarn gave som» interesting particulars about the methods of these two organisations in collecting information on which to forecast public opinion. Many of the questions handled by these organisations are issues on which there is no political machinery in existence for obtaining a direct expression of public opinion. Such questions as "Should sit-down strikes be made illeafti.'" — ' "Do you approve of the

proposal that all labour unions be incorporated in order that they may be held legally liable for the contracts they make?" come up for discussion during Election campaigns, but elections are not iecided on such direct issues alone. Such ssuee are bunched with others of greater >r lesser importance in the platform of londidates standing for election. The ;wo organisations mentioned which ipecialise in testing public opinion deal vith these questions, and with others, tfhich are of public interest, but ■ which ie outside the range of party politics. They do not concern themselves solely vith political issues and election results. )ne of them places its services at the lisposal of advertising agencies, corporaions and trade associations for iscertaining the preferences of house vives with regard to particular goods on he market, t

The American Institute of Public Opinion employs aUput 040 part-time workers, located in cities and rural areas throughout the country. They receive blank ballot papers from the central office, and call on people in their homes, in offices, and on farms, and stop people in the street, to obtain their opinions. They are paid at the rate of about 2/6 an hour, plus travel in rural districts. "These field workers," states Mr. Spingarn, "put in an average of five or six hours a week on the job. Honest and Unbiased.

"Most of them are college graduates," all have had references from prominent local citizens attesting to their honesty and freedom from bias. A large number are young married women? Their work is closely watched by the central office, and if an interviewer consistently sends in results which contrast with the results sent in by others, his territory may be cheeked by mail, or by another field worker, to determine whether he is cheating. "Interviewers work in their own time —some in the morning, some in the afternoon, and others at night. In industrial towns like Detroit if is practically impossible to find men at home during the day, and all interviewing must be done at night, or over the week-end. People are very willing to express their views, and as the surveys become better known, they feel a certain pride in being represented in the nation's 'cross-section. The names of persons interviewed are not taken, but the name of the street in which they live is noted. Unless the subject is

unusually garrulous, an interview takes about ten minutes.

"Generally when a ballot is mailed to interviewers on Monday, it reaches the i»o**t distant ones by Wednesday morning; field work is completed by Saturday night, and on Monday morning the bulk of the returns come in to the central office, with the lasf returns "following on Tuesday and Wednesday. The tabulation is done by machine, and can be completed within a few days after the last ballot comes in. In emergencies a 'rush' poll on a question can be made in 72 hours.

The Factor of Size. "This scientific random sampling simply boils down to taking the opinion of a given number of residents of Park Avenue (let us say) selected at random as a composite of what Park Avenue people are thinking; then doing the same thing in a factory district,, with a much larger number of people, because there are many more factory workers; and having another interviewer visit farm houses in Wisconsin. If all groups of people are sounded out, and cach is represented in proportion to its voting strength at elections, a representative cross-section of the electorate is obtained. The size of the sample used is important. If we question only one New England farmer we may get the village atheist, whose ideas are unique in the community. If we question 20 we counteract such errors. The statisticians who have made exhaustive study of the laws of chance say that a sample is adequate in size when an increase in the number of cases fails to produce significant differences in results. °

"As a general rule about 0000 persons, properly distributed among all grades of the community, are questioned. A much larger number are questioned when public opinion on a matter of great public importance is being tested; but it has been found that a test of 50,000 voters will be only about 2 per cent more accurate than one of 3000. Minors are not usually questioned, nor are negroes in the south, where they may not vote."

In recent State elections their forecasts have within 3 or 4 per cent of the actual results. In the Presidential election of 1936. in which President Roosevelt received 60.7 per cent of the total of 45,646,817 votes recorded. "Fortune" forecast a poll of 61.7 per cent for Roosevelt, and the American Institute of Public Opinion 53.8 per cent.