Push-polling

A push poll is an interactive marketing technique, most commonly employed during political campaigning, in which an individual or organization attempts to manipulate or alter prospective voters' views/beliefs under the guise of conducting an opinion poll.

In a push poll, large numbers of voters are contacted with little effort made to actually collect and analyze voters' response data. Instead, the push poll is a form of telemarketing-based propaganda and rumor mongering, masquerading as an opinion poll. Push polls may rely on innuendo, or information gleaned from opposition research on the political opponent of the interests behind the poll.

Push polls are generally viewed as a form of negative campaigning. Indeed, the term is commonly (and confusingly) used in a broader sense to refer to legitimate polls that aim to test negative political messages. Future usage of the term will determine whether the strict or broad definition becomes the most favored definition. However, in all such polls, the pollster asks leading questions or suggestive questions that "push" the interviewee towards adopting an unfavourable response towards the political candidate in question.

Legislation in Australia's Northern Territory defined push-polling as any activity conducted as part of a telephone call made, or a meeting held, during the election period for an election, that: (a) is, or appears to be, a survey (for example, a telephone opinion call or telemarketing call); and (b) is intended to influence an elector in deciding his or her vote.

Push polling has been condemned by the American Association of Political Consultants and the American Association for Public Opinion Research.

Richard Nixon was one of push polling's pioneers. In his very first campaign, a successful 1946 run for the U.S. House against Democrat incumbent Jerry Voorhis, Democratic voters throughout the district reported receiving telephone calls that began: "This is a friend of yours, but I can't tell you who I am. Did you know that Jerry Voorhis is a communist?" (he wasn't) – at which point the caller hung up. A citizen later came forward admitting that she worked for Nixon for $9 a day, in a telephone-bank room where the attack calls were made.

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