How to mislead using a poll (kudos to DUer bobbieinok)

[rpannier]

Fellow DUer bobbieinok had a posting from some far right fundie group on repealing the 19th Amendment. I went to their website http://fathers.ourfamily.com/19th.htm where they had this staggering statistic:

Only 12% of men and 9% of women support such "liberal" concepts as the Nineteenth Amendment. I was shocked when I saw this. So I clicked their little link. It takes you to a Gallup report from Nov. 2000.

I scrolled down looking for the survey question on Repealing the 19th Amendment. Guess what? There isn't one. The only question that could remotely (and by remotely I mean that Pretoria, South Africa is remotely close to where I live Bucheon, Korea) have anything to do with the 19th Amendment is a question about Gender Preferences. Where, yes it is true, 12% of men and 9% of women in the poll were in favor of gender preferences.

I guess they hope no one actually takes the time to read the polling data from Gallup.

[niyad]

1. they hope everyone is as brain-dead as their followers.

[IsItJustMe]

2. There must be a hundred ways to decieve using a poll. My favorite quote

is

There are lies, damn lies, and then there are statistics.

[unblock]

3. the 19th amendment is specifically NON gender preferential

other than its title (women's suffrage), it's specifically about making voting a right that's NOT based on gender preferences:




The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.

Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

[rpannier]

4. Agreed

But it's the closest thing that could even be attributed to gender in the Gallup survey.

[unblock]

5. well, if the 12 and 9% numbers line up, that's surely what they meant

but of course this only shows the extremes they go to, talking about equal rights as somehow being "preferential".

naturally, nondiscrimination laws are only "preferential" if you think the natural order of things is discriminatory.