Political polls emerged in the 1920’s with the Literary Digest sent out polling card to its subscribers to determine how they would vote for in the coming election.  The Literary Digest poll became very good at predicting not just who would win but by what margin they would carry the election.  

George Gallup, a Ph.D. in psychology was interested in the decision making process around the democratic process and developed a polling process using statistical sampling process techniques that at the time were considered to be the leading statistical and scientific methods to collecting and analyzing opinions through polling.  Gallup would send collectors to designated spots, determined by random sampling methods and then instruct them to collect data from specific demographics.  The period from 1935 through the 1940s the Gallup Poll grew in popularity.   There were problems with the collecting process, since there were contrived demographics in how the information was collected, it failed the statistical random selection process, and opened the polling to collector bias and manipulation. 

 Private companies today collect political polls, each with their own proprietary method for collection and analysis of the results.  The results still have raised questions, as there is little standardization in the process of collecting information.  The content of the questions, including the choice of wording; the demographic of the people polled and the location of the polling can all have an effect on the results and findings of the poll.  

Polls are used in politics to both gather marketing information about the viability of the candidate, but some would maintain the larger incentive for polling is to influence the voters.  In some cases, the belief is the polling results will impact the voter turnout or will influence the voter’s decisions.  

Polls can be used in the breakout phase, when a candidate is first announced to test public response.  Overtime the brushfire poll is used to show how the popularity is spreading and tracking polls are used to predict election returns.  

The Internet equivalent of the poll is the political forum.  The forum tends to collect either the same political point of view or a polarity in views, as the political debate plays out in the forum.  Toppoliticalsites.org offers a laundry list of the most popular forums for expressing your political point of view. 

Political forums can be focused on specific topics such as the need to balance the budget or health care reform.  But some of the liveliest of the political forums are those that are based upon the platforms of the political parties and the relevant tenets of the parties.  There are political forums that tend to be extremely provocative in nature and draw attention and comments from the more outlandish points of view.  The extreme left and right political points of view tend to generate the greatest buzz. 

The election process, particularly the presidential election has always attracted attention and interest.  Understanding the thinking and political preference of the general populace is extremely important to those selecting candidates, managing campaigns and trying to win elections.