Loaded Polls

   Many organizations tout the results of surveys they sponsor in order to "prove" they were right all along.
   The problem here is that the questions are phrased in such a way as to prompt answers that the pollsters need to support their predetermined results.
   Moreover, the questions are based on unproven, incomplete and sometimes biased or even false premises calculated to induce anger and encourage the answer that the poll writers want.
   Example: "Do you believe non-U.S. citizens should be allowed to vote in American elections?"
   Clearly, the answer would be No, since non-citizens cannot now vote anyway. But the question plants the seed-thought that many non-citizens already do vote in large numbers and must be stopped.
   Reality check: There is no evidence that millions of non-citizens and illegal aliens voted in the 2016 presidential election, despite what some -- including the current president -- allege.
   Here's another phrase pre-loaded to bring a desired response: "I have every reason to believe that significant numbers of non-citizens and others are voting illegally in U.S. elections."
   The "reasons" for this belief are never specified in the seven-page memo accompanying the survey, nor is the term "significant numbers" quantified.
   How many constitute a "significant" number? Where? When? Who were they? For whom did they vote? It's a good guess that if this "significant" number of non-citizens voted for the organization's preferred candidate, the question would not be on the survey.
   The memo, titled the "2018 Illegal Alien Election Survey Impact Survey," also cites an academic survey that estimated there are "about 20 million non-citizen adults living in the U.S.," and even if "a very low rate" of them registered to vote, that would yield "hundreds of thousands" of people voting illegally.
   But here's a question: How many of these 20 million are living here legally, as members of the diplomatic corps, or as employees of international corporations and their families, or are newcomers awaiting full citizenship?
   No answer.
   It turns out that even the academic who conducted the survey protested the selective picking and choosing of portions of the data in order to slant the results to support some predetermined position.
   The bottom line is that many so-called surveys are rigged to catch certain responses to support some propaganda, in this case the idea that many millions of illegal, non-citizen aliens vote in U.S. elections and in other ways corrupt American society.
   The examples cited here came from a mailing by a group calling itself Judicial Watch.
   Meanwhile, there are many other surveys, conducted by reputable pollsters, that show there is little evidence to support the claim that millions of people vote illegally in American elections.
   A better conclusion, from reading the background memos and the phrasing of the survey questions, is that the pollsters themselves are biased, and are only seeking numbers to bolster their prejudices.