An Interesting Poll

REGULAR READERS will remember that the old Canvey Beat, hosted by WordPress, used to frequently provide different straw-polls to assess reader opinion on a number of different local matters; but the poll it conducted regarding reader voter intentions, for last May’s local elections, proved to be hopelessly wrong as far as the island was concerned. The Canvey Island Independent Party, on a low turnout, swept aside all local opposition.

There are a number of possible reasons for that poll to have been so wrong. In the first place, only a small number of readers took part in the poll (which is not unusual, in England, where most voters like to keep their intentions secret). Secondly, the Canvey Beat was only attracting some 800 visitors a day during election week – and that is just a small proportion of Canvey Island voters. For any poll to be significant, it needs to be undertaken by at least 1,000 respondents.

But perhaps more significant is the fact that most islanders, as polls conducted by Castle Point Borough Council and Canvey Island Town Council show, just cannot be bothered with any kind of voting at all. Islanders view most politicians with contempt, following the MPs’ Expenses Scandal - and revelations on this Blog about Castle Point’s previous MP and the CIIP run Town Council have simply increased their apathy.

Unfortunately, it is apathy that allows a community’s minority to gain political power – since those will always brave the most inclement weather to ensure their votes are cast.

Apathy just hands the reins to an unrepresentative few.

During its previous polls, the Canvey Beat came under vociferous attack from CIIP supporters claiming that their vote had not been counted by its poll widgets – and that all its polls were ‘fixed.’ Some even said they had voted ‘No,’ only for the poll to count it as a ‘Yes.’

The claims, of course, were ludicrous. WordPress only provides PollDaddy polls, which are completely independent and hosted on a different server. However, those polls (if one is stupid enough not to choose the correct option before hitting the ‘Vote’ button) do not permit the voter to subsequently change their minds.

Well, BlogSpot polls do permit voters to change their mind – and that seems, to me, to be a very interesting feature where voting intentions are concerned. If enough readers contribute, such a poll could accurately reflect changing reader opinion over the full course of an election campaign.

The same provisos apply, of course: if few readers choose to participate: the results are likely to be wrong. But if voters are permitted to change their minds, at any time, more readers might be persuaded to record their intentions.

Like WordPress PollDaddy polls, readers can only vote once – and the vote is allocated to the computer being used and its account holder. If a husband and wife are sharing an account, then only one vote will be permitted; but, if they each have a separate user account on the machine: both will obtain an individual vote.

The Canvey Beat now has another poll, beneath its search widget in the top right-hand column, asking for your voting intentions in next May’s Town Council elections.

The poll will close on May 1st, 2011.

Thank you for voting…