Forms of Push Polls
The mildest forms of push polling are designed merely to remind voters of a particular issue. For instance, a push poll might ask respondents to rank candidates based on their support of an issue in order to get voters thinking about that issue.
Many push polls are negative attacks on other candidates. These attacks often contain information with little or no basis in fact. They will ask questions such as "If you knew that Candidate Smith was being investigated for corruption, would you be more likely to vote for him, or less likely?" The question doesn't state that any investigation has taken place, so it is not a lie, but it serves to imply that Candidate Smith is corrupt.
One way to distinguish between push polling as a tactic and polls which legitimately seek information is the sample size. Genuine polls make do with small, representative samples, whereas push polls can be very large, like any other mass marketing effort.
True push polls tend to be very short, with only a handful of questions, so as to make as many calls as possible. Any data obtained (if used at all) is secondary in importance to negatively affecting the targeted candidate. Legitimate polls are often used by candidates to test potential messages. They frequently ask about either positive and negative statements about any or all major candidates in an election and always ask demographic information at the end.
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