HuffPost Begins Polling Project

 The Huffington Post is initiating an investigation of the poll industry. They want to find out if the polls are "measuring the 2008 election or are they driving it?" Anyone with any experience with polls can tell you that most are created with a predetermined goal in mind, but HuffPost seeks to quantify it and they want your help.

Our aim is simple: to get a better understanding of how polling is being used across the country. We want to get to the bottom of how pollsters conduct their surveys, how they gather and build their stats, how they target who they contact, and, ultimately, how they reach their conclusions -- conclusions that often fuel the very races they are supposed to be analyzing.

We are launching this non-partisan effort to examine the polling industry with a wide variety of co-sponsors reaching across the political spectrum, including: Talking Points Memo, Instapundit, Politico, The Center for Independent Media, The Nation, Pajamas Media, Mother Jones, WNYC Radio, My Silver State, and Personal Democracy Forum.

Our methods are simple and direct, and stress transparency - the key ingredient missing from a lot of polling data. With the help of our co-sponsors we are looking to ask as many people as we can reach to share their polling experiences via this form, telling us exactly how they have been polled. Who called them? At what time? Did they agree to participate in the poll or refuse to (one of the least transparent aspects of polling continues to be the refusal of most polling companies to release response rates, which have plummeted in recent years to around 30 percent)? What questions were they asked? Did the questions seem fair or were they worded in a way that seemed loaded? Did they feel like they were being targeted because of their age, gender, or ethnicity? Did the pollster seem to be guiding them toward a predetermined answer?

We'll also want to know: How do the questions being asked of voters in Iowa differ from those in New Hampshire, Nevada, and South Carolina? Are African-Americans and Latinos being asked different questions than white voters? How about women?

As the responses come in, we will compile and analyze the data, looking for patterns and trends. We think the result will be a clearer picture of the different kinds of polls specific groups, campaigns, and media organizations are conducting, and a greater understanding of how and why they are being used.