The Union Wants Your Opinion About the Idaho-Maryland Mine
Update at 7:45AM on 9/15/11: See comment #5 below (link) for why this so-called “poll” question is bogus, and why the results cannot be trusted, no matter which side they appear to favor.
The Union is conducting a poll among Facebook users concerning attitudes about re-opening the Idaho-Maryland Mine.
This is the single — and conspicuously leading — poll question:
Since The Union doesn’t mind asking leading questions, maybe it should consider asking it this way:
To participate in the poll, click on either of the two links above.
6 thoughts on “The Union Wants Your Opinion About the Idaho-Maryland Mine”
The poll results show strong opposition to re-opening the Idaho-Maryland:
Maybe they should go multiple-choice and get it over with:
“With gold and unemployment at near-record highs, which describes your attitude most accurately?
(A) You support re-opening the mine
(B) You subscribe to Marxist-Leninist philosophy
(C) You really admire Joseph Stalin”
I find it interesting that so many of the public support the mine, especially after the barage of mis-truths by the CLAIM people
Hi Gerry. Thanks for your comment.
Since I’m a member of CLAIM, I’d be interested to see your examples of “mis-truths” you feel have been propagated by CLAIM.
My experience is that we are all very careful and scrupulous about educating the public to the documented dangers of the mine, and the reasons why it just makes good business sense to oppose it.
Your examples of what you feel are our “mis-truths” would be greatly appreciated.
In the meantime, the Union online version of the same poll question is virtual dead heat:
There are several reasons why neither the Facebook version nor the Union online version of this poll question should be taken seriously.
First, the question itself is biased in favor of the mine. With its emotional reference to the high unemployment rate, it’s a “leading question.”
Second, there are no determinable selection criteria (homeowners living near the mine, etc.), or any way to know whether the respondents even live in Nevada County, or in California, or in the US for that matter!
Finally and most damning, the voting process is completely insecure and cannot be trusted, because it’s possible for one person to vote multiple times merely by erasing his cookies (or even switching computers) between votes. Or, if he’s really clever, he could write a computer program to generate hundreds of votes.
It’s completely impossible to draw any conclusions from this so-called “poll.”
Even though these poll results are completely untrustworthy, it’s interesting to see the trend.