ANN ARBOR—With the 1996 U.S. presidential campaign in high gear and the general election still several months away, a steady barrage of public opinion polls and surveys will continue to bombard Americans.

To help make sense of the “horse race” polling reported in the news media, Michael Traugott of the University of Michigan and Paul Lavrakas of Northwestern University have written “The Voter’s Guide to Election Polls.”

Published by Chatham House, the book serves as a primer on political polling and will “help citizens develop a more critical view of how polls do and don’t, yet could and should, contribute to a more informed electorate and a better functioning democracy.”

While the authors believe that polls can contribute to Americans’ knowledge and understanding of the political process, they say that too much campaign reporting is devoted to who is ahead and who is behind. Also, polls are used too often to support explanations of campaign strategy, rather than focusing on the issues that concern voters, they say.

“Our hope is that if citizens understand more about how polls are conducted, analyzed and reported in the media, they will be able to think about other ways in which such information would be useful to them,” Traugott says. “And on an informed basis, they will be able and want to exert pressure on news organizations to alter some elements of their coverage so they will be more responsive to the informational interests and needs of their readers and viewers.”

The book addresses the following core questions: What are polls and surveys and why are they conducted? What are election polls and how are they conducted? How do political candidates and organizations use poll data? How do news organizations use poll data? Why do pollsters use samples? How do interviews take place? How are questionnaires put together? How do media organizations analyze polls? How can I evaluate published poll results? What are some common problems and complaints about polls?

University of Michigan