In her latest op-ed column in the TAB, Austin Street development opponent Kathleen Kouril Grieser announced that the (still mysterious) anti-development citizens group Newton Villages Alliance has just created an on-line poll “to clarify how Newtonville envisions Austin Street, going forward.”
This new survey follows an often-cited poll conducted by the Newtonville Area Council in February, which Kouril Grieser dismisses because it had “bias built into survey questions,” as well as the city’s own Austin Street Dotmocracy .
A similar survey was conducted recently in Newton Highlands and Waban to gauge feelings about the Zervas School Expansion Project (analyzed here by project critic Steve Feinstein).
And, of course, this blog, and the TAB Blog have used online polls for years in Newton about everything from school naming rights to what someone’s day job is to killing bears to this musical show down .
I’ve never suggested taking our online blogs seriously. And certainly anyone who has compared the results of Village 14’s various election-related polls knows that they are far from true barometers of anything except perhaps which campaign has (a) the most time on its hands and (b) knows the most about clearing cookies. (Although this one proved to be spot on!)
So how seriously should we take these things? Naturally, we’ve created a poll to find out!
[polldaddy poll=”8260873″]
On flip slide – how does the BoA or the Mayor get sentiment? I have not have heard my Alderman or SC person reach out to get any sentiment.
In absence of any other data, these polls at least give citizens a voice.
Sam – I can vote 5 times on each of these online polls without setting foot out of my house or knowing a thing about cookies. They’re fun until someone uses the results as evidence to back a position on an issue.
If I remember right the Newtonville one tracked IP of the respondent. Online or email polls can be very helpful, but you need to make sure demographic questions are asked. You can then compare those answers to census data and get a general idea if the poll is representative of age/race/language etc.
All polls have some bias in them, two politicians can release polls of their constituents and have each poll say they are in the lead. That is where you look into the demographics to see what is going on. In any case I think the Newtonville Area Council poll was well done, but it was just online. It self selects simply by being just online (and in English only)
Any poll that is just surveying people who show up will not be representative, same with folks who offer comments at public meetings. I think we should potentially collect more information from folks who come to speak at public meetings. Name and address is fine, but things like age range, how many vehicles owned, primary language, or race identity (where reasonable, or maybe just age…). This data can be gotten from census numbers for the areas impacted and can be compared to that data to see how much weight should be placed on the comments or poll results.
It is obviously important to hear from older residents but if your average age at the public meeting is 55 and census says the average age in the block/block group is 35 maybe those folks at the public meeting are not as representative as it might seem… (we know they are not in any case because those that show up to public meetings are self selected, typically tend to be older, white, and property owners, which in most cases may not fully represent the community)
Sam asks an excellent question. How do the Mayor or Aldermen ascertain constituents’ sentiments on any issue? How for that matter does the governor or our members of Congress? For larger issues there is polling but at the local level that is rarely the case. I know that I listen to people to email or call me, or stop me on the street. I also publish a monthly newsletter that people respond to. We also listen to people who attend public meetings or hearings. I agree with John that there is a built-in bias regarding public meetings… only those who have the time or capacity to go to a meeting will be present. It is harder to do that if you are a single parent, if you work nights, if you are homebound, if you don’t speak english.
Another point in response to John’s post, it was striking to me during my campaign last year to note that the average age of regular municipal voters was, well, let’s just say approaching or beyond the age of eligibility for AARP membership. If younger people want their voices to be heard, a first step they could take would be to vote in local elections.
What @Emily and @John said. It’s also interesting to compare what people say in public, what they say in private, and then what they actually vote for. And that’s added on to the observation above that people who have a strong opinion in private may not get out to voice it publicly.
Or, indeed, to vote. I’ve seen voter data that identifies people who strongly supported (or opposed) ballot questions and candidates who then did not come out to vote in the election itself.
How seriously to take online poll results depends on how the poll was done. Of course, any voluntary poll will potentially have a fair amount of non-response bias. A poll that just captures web site visitors, e.g., will be less representative than one that uniformly targets a broad sample. We attempted to do that by leafleting every household in Newton Highlands and Waban. Even then, the people that bother to take the survey may be more inclined to one point of view, leaving the rest unrepresented in the poll, hence one source of bias.
Still, I think that if the sample size is large enough, it’s still useful to know what a significant number of people think. There are around 3300 registered voters in the Highlands and we got responses from about 10% of them. If, in addition, the results are lopsided, that starts to become useful data. No, you won’t have a scientific, random study with a low error estimate, but it’s still interesting.
Emily does a great job of communicating with her constituents and she takes community input seriously. But I bet that my aldermen have not heard from more than a tiny number of people on Zervas, the issue we polled about. If you compare what aldermen hear directly vs our poll, I would say the data we collected was more meaningful. Not perfect, not unbiased but neither is the city’s current method. And by the way, many aldermen and some members of the building committee were quite interested in the results.
If the questions aren’t too imbalanced, and you have a large enough sample size compared to the total population, and high accuracy isn’t a requirement, and if the results turn out lopsided, then you have something to talk about. It’s easy to say these polls are biased. Of course they are – they all are! The elections are biased towards the people that tend to show up to vote. The aldermen’s emails and phone calls are biased. This blog is biased.
Someone on the school committee just told me that 80% of the emails that came in on Fleishgate were positive. Most of the blog comments were negative and so are the opinions of high school students, so I am told by certain high school students. At least the biased set that are willing to talk to me.
Let’s see… do you want a parking lot, a parking lot, a parking lot with pretty flowers and trees, a parking lot, or a parking lot with a small building, as long as it’s no where near 4 stories tall? Hmmm… no bias at all. Oh, and if you don’t live in Newtonville, you don’t get to vote. And don’t bother me with any details like tax revenue or housing needs.
But Aldermen do take citizen complaints very seriously, whether you’ve studied up or not, at least in Ward 6 where I live. All you have to do is make a lot of noise.
I agree Adam. The Newton Villages Alliance survey is beyond credibility. And for Kathleen Kouril Grieser to say the Newtonville Area Council’s survey had “bias built into survey questions” while touting this joke takes a lot of chutzpah.
Adam, They obviously liked Monty Python’s Spam skit.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=anwy2MPT5RE
I have to say those who have an Alderman who listens and represents their constituency sentiment are blessed!
I don’t know when was the last time my BoA or SC member contacted around any issue. Or for that matter, did not start a conv by posturing (or having reputation) for a certain point of view, or worse ideology.
I can rant out so many examples where people have told me their ideology and stuck to it regardless of voice of their constituency.
A good example is the METCO program (and I don’t want to derail this topic) and school crowding. Do we know where does the public stand.
I support METCO program, unless when 6 of 26 children in my daughters classroom are METCO, and with special aide. Call me MINBY if you want.
Sam S, Aldermen have a responsibility to do what’s right for the community, not just stop projects because people are angry or poorly informed. That’s not leadership, that’s obstructionism.
Hey a big thanks to the person or persons who spent the weekend voting, clearing cookies, voting, clearing cookies, voting, etc.
Really helps with our blog stats and proves my point about how no one should take the results of the NVA survey or any other online poll seriously.
Can you go for 1,000?
LOL. It appears whoever it was invoked the mercy rule and stopped at 500.
Polling is a science, essentially an application of statistics (which is an application of probability theory which is an application of measure theory). Unless the polling organization has a track record and demonstrated facility with statistical techniques underlying a valid poll, there is no good reason to trust the results of that survey.
Greg asks:
1,000 it is. Sorry, you don’t get any hits from it, Greg, and cookies have nothing to do with it anymore.
@Adam: You are forgetting all the traffic we will get from our aldermen, mayor and school committee members who are frequently checking this poll to see if they should take poll results seriously or not!
@Greg, I hope you aren’t including me in that lot.
@Ted: Everyone knows you don’t read this blog.
Ha! Just between the two of us, I do. And so do a lot of other elected officials.
Ted — I’ll bet none of the school committee reads this stuff, otherwise one of them would have insisted that all four of the minutes they approved at the last mtg were posted on the SC website by now. I only see two; one that is missing is the executive session.
I’d take that bet Hoss and I’m pretty sure Ted would too. Hi Matt! Hi Ellen! Hi Margaret! Hi Angela! Hi Diana! Hi Ruth! Hi Margie! Wazup Steve!