Question

"Push polling" is a way of political campaigning while pretending to be conducting a poll. The poll questions consist of loaded questions designed to push those being polled away from the opposition candidate or issue. Here is an example. "Please tell me if you would be more or less likely to vote for Candidate X if you knew that Candidate X advocated giving convicted sex offenders early release from prison."

The poll questions are never outright lies and usually contain a large element of truth.

Comment on this practice. Is it ethical? Unethical? Why or why not? When thinking this through, keep in mind the purpose of polling.

Answer 1

The purpose of polling is usually to collect or gather information through survey of a population.

While in case of push polling, the focus is usually on persuading the respondent to support a certain candidate. This is thus a form of marketing that masquerades itself as a poll.

It is unethical, since the intention of the interviewer is to mislead to respondent through false or biased information. A lot of research and survey organizations have denounced this practice as a good survey will always be neutral and such malpractices can also affect the credibility of real surveys/ polls.