Is it time to axe political polling? Firm collapses after admitting its numbers were a ‘social experiment’

Median Strategies, which presented itself as an independent polling and research firm, recently shut down after the Los Angeles Times exposed it for fabricating a survey showing a large lead for Karen Bass in the Los Angeles mayoral race. Its other fabricated results, including one showing Francesca Hong with a large lead in Wisconsin’s Democratic gubernatorial primary, were also revealed as part of the same operation.

After repeated inquiries from the Times, Median Strategies admitted the numbers were completely made up as a “short-term social experiment examining how purported polling information could enter and spread through the political information ecosystem without independent verification.”

Once exposed, it withdrew all its prior polling releases, claimed no political funding or financial motives were involved, and shut down without revealing the identities of those involved.

Even more disturbing, Steve Deace’s producer and co-host Aaron McIntire points out, is that Median Strategies’ polling numbers for Wisconsin’s Democratic gubernatorial primary “largely mirrored the results from established pollsters like Marquette and Public Policy Polling.”

The scandal begs the question: If fake numbers can so easily pass as legitimate and shape political reality, should public polling itself be banned?

On this episode of the “Steve Deace Show,” Deace reacts to the Median Strategies scandal; the panel also proposes ideas to to curb the influence of unreliable polling.

“We've created this entire society now where stuff is determined by polling that most of us can't ever recall we've ever taken part in,” says Deace, likening political polling to a sports betting scenario where a gambler loses his money before the game is ever played because an obscure panel of analysts already determined the outcome.

“What have I been saying about we should prosecute these polling institutions for fraud? Exhibit 666 right here,” says co-host Todd Erzen.

Deace has a proposal to fix the issue: “The elections determine who wins and what policies we're going to do — like when people actually go and vote.”

Then “when you're in office and if you won the election, do what you got elected to do, and then let the people decide in the next election whether they like that or not rather than constantly reacting and responding to things we're not even sure are true,” he adds.

“I think this is a great idea, and here's how you prosecute it. ... If you ban public polling, the first defense is going to be, ‘Well, that's freedom of speech.’ No, you prosecute it as a violation of freedom of speech," says McIntire.

He argues that Median Strategies allegedly created its fake poll numbers to “deceive people” in order to “squash their vote.”

“That would seem to be a violation of the First Amendment to me,” he says.

To hear more, watch the episode above.

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