Polls Influence Undecided Voters

Undecided voter watching the photo shoot.

Below is old post 5 November 2022 about polls.

Count down for America’s 2022 Midterm Election. Three days to go, if we don’t count 8 November, the actual date. People who voted early are smiling. They won’t spend hours standing in line, waiting to cast their vote.

Early voters also knew who they were going to vote for. The target now is undecided voters, which is hard to understand how anybody is undecided about their future. Voting is like deciding schools for your kids. Some parents walk them to neighborhood schools built by local taxes. Others drive an hour away, for reasons best known to themselves.

Also, the internet is like a store, with clothes on hangers and sale bins where we fish out 80% markdowns. A jacket might have a missing button or a shirt with lipstick on the collar. Political parties use lie bins to hook undecided voters.

One lie bin are ‘polls.’ I used to be careless and allowed headlines to grab me, only to realize that they have nothing to do with the body of the story. These ‘polls’ always say Candidate A is leading Candidate B in Georgia or North Carolina. The target is undecided voters. Some will end up believing what is in that lie bin and vote for Candidate A.

The internet is a virtual buffet so we don’t have time to check who is throwing non-exist polls into the bin. I’m more careful now and open things from public sources like CP, MSNBC, Yahoo, The Guardian and even Fox. At least the world knows Fox’s position on anything.

On 8 November, vote intelligently, not because of lies about fake ‘polls.’

By: Nonqaba waka Msimang.