World's Most Important Poll

Written by: John Barta on Dec 1, 2007 2:04 PM EST

We call this the World's Most Important Poll because it shows that one popular Democratic candidate also has many Democratic voters that find them to be their least favored candidate, thus raising questions about their ability to succeed in the general election if they get the nomination. It costs only a few dollars to create this poll and you'll end up registering lots of voters in the process. This has energized our voter contact activity!

The poll does many other things as well:

• It forces voters to think about all of the candidates, even those with whom they are unfamiliar. As wonks we are shocked to learn that some folks have no idea about some of the candidates. This gets folks thinking about all of the candidates.
  
• It forces voters to think about electability in the general election.
• It lets voters share their opinion about who they DON'T LIKE in addition to who they DO like. And, it demonstrates that these two things are very different. (The lowest "like most" candidate is NOT the same as the highest "like least" candidate. Some candidates ARE polarizing!)
• It engages voters in the election RIGHT NOW in a tangible way - boy, do they LOVE polking those pins in the chart!

How it works: Voters are given TWO pins, one for the candidate they like the most, and the other for the one they like the least. They cannot vote until we have confirmed their registration status as Democrats. We do the verification of status on the spot with a laptop computer loaded with current voter data. This thing draws crowds and gets results!

(Note: Photo was taken before end of evening poll. Results vary, but trends are discernable. Try your own!)

Here's a link to more information: http://www.victoryalliance.org/poll/poll.htm

Background, we run this poll every Thursday night at the San Luis Obispo, California, Farmer's Market. Patterns have emerged and have changed over time. One pattern which is consistent is that the same candidate always has the highest number of "Like Least" votes - and these are Democrats who are voting.

This poll is easy and cheap to create - you just create the poll on letter size paper and then spend a couple of dollars blowing it up to 30x40 inches at a print shop that specializes in blueprint reproductions. That and a couple of boxes of push pins and you are ready to "poll" . The other critical ingredient is having a list of current voter status information. We got ours and put it on a laptop computer. You could just as easily get a big printed out version and use that for verification (as long as the list is not WAY too long. Ours is 150,000 voters). Set yourself up where lots of folks walk by and then ask folks: Would you like to vote in our poll? Are you a Democrat in this county? (check this if you have the ability to do so.) Give them two pins and then stand back! Oh yes, be ready to register LOTS of voters in the process. The poll generates great deal of activity. We register MANY more voters when we are using this poll than we otherwise would.

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