The Tri-County Journal
& Chattahoochee Chronicle
PO Box 850, 71 Webb Lane
Buena Vista, GA 31803
229-649-6397
tjournal@alltel.net
Truth, Lies and Statistics!
On the bottom of this page readers will find the results of our first “Question of the Week,” as well as the next question in our new series of online polls.
I am excited about this new feature and I look forward to seeing the results of the polls as we go along.
However, I would also like to point out that the polls are not scientific and that the newspaper makes no claim that they will always be an accurate measure of the beliefs of the majority of local residents. There is a saying that goes something like this: “There are truth, lies and *#@! statistics.” That is to say that statistics can sometimes be manipulated to appear to mean more than they really do.
For instance, if I told you that according to a poll, 100% of area residents think the publisher of this newspaper is a great fellow and skilled newspaperman, and didn’t tell you that only one person (his mom) voted in the poll, I’d be using worthless statistics to mislead you. (Of course I’m sure that with that particular example some of our readers would say I’d be outright lying and in danger of being struck by lighting!).
We will always tell you how many people responded and cast votes in our weekly polls.
We will try to pose clear and to-the-point questions to avoid this variable.
There are also practical variables that will influence the results of our online polls. Not every local resident has a computer (and even some who do aren’t connected to the internet). That limits the number of people who can respond to the polls.
In addition, our system tracks the “IP address” of each computer used to take the poll and will allow only one vote to be cast for each poll for a single computer. In some cases it will only allow one vote from multiple computers if they share the same IP address. (For privacy advocates, don’t worry -- I’m not the FBI and have no way to match your IP addresses to you.) At any rate, while this factor will help prevent people from voting multiple times and skewing the results of the poll, it also pretty much limits each household to only one vote, unless a member of the household votes from an online computer at another location.
Of course, the poll is also limited to the number of people who know about it. If a person doesn’t read the paper or visit the paper’s website one week, that person obviously won’t be taking the poll.
Also, non-mandatory polls usually receive the most responses from people who feel very strongly about an issue, while those who do have an opinion, but don’t believe the issue is of great importance are less likely to cast votes.
So, with all of the variables that can potentially make polls misleading, why bother? My hope is that these series of polls will lead to more thoughtful consideration of local issues by area residents and give people an opportunity to voice their opinions. I also believe our readers will find the questions and the poll results to be an interesting snapshot of local happenings.
Just keep in mind that our polls will be like our publisher -- imperfect.
To view the current poll, click here.
