Strategic Vision in Breach of AAPOR Code

In the US, polling firm Strategic Vision has been slammed by the AAPOR (the American Association for Public Opinion Research) for its failure to cooperate in an investigation into voter surveys conducted during last year's presidential primaries.

Following Senator Hillary Clinton's surprise win in the January 2008 New Hampshire election, AAPOR formed a committee to review the evaluations conducted by the individual organisations engaged in polling prior to the New Hampshire primary.

Twenty one organizations were asked to provide their statistics to help understand what went wrong with the predictions. However, the AAPOR says that Strategic Vision did not provide sufficient methodological information - as defined by its Code - about its surveys, and refused to provide the information even after the association had repeatedly requested it.

For more than a year, the AAPOR was unable to ascertain who had sponsored Strategic Vision's survey, a description of the sampling frame, an account of how likely voters were identified and selected, response rates, and a description of any weighting or estimating procedures used. This is a minimum AAPOR requirement for what it deems to be 'professional behavior' among public opinion researchers.

Following Strategic Vision's failure to respond to the AAPOR's inquiries, a complaint was filed alleging a violation of the association's Code of Professional Ethics and Practices. The investigation process included two notices of non-compliance to the firm's CEO David Johnson, who the association says 'explicitly refused to provide the requested information'.

Later, after receiving notification of the association's initial findings of a violation, the AAPOR claims that Johnson offered partial but incomplete information.

Stephen Blumberg, Chair of the AAPOR's Standards Committee, noted that the complaint and AAPOR's subsequent investigation of Strategic Vision focused solely on the issue of disclosure: 'In no way did the investigation address the quality of work by Strategic Vision, the accuracy of the polls, or the integrity of the company,' he said.

Johnson said his firm had wanted to appeal the judgment, and stated that a hearing due to be held last week had been scheduled - and then cancelled by the AAPOR.

However, the association's President Peter Miller said that the AAPOR had sent Johnson notices four times asking him to confirm his attendance at that hearing, and finally ended up cancelling because of the lack of any response.

While Strategic Vision is not a member of the AAPOR, Miller said this is irrelevant. 'It's a professional and scientific responsibility for anyone in public opinion research to be transparent. It's our duty to try to encourage people to do that, and to basically disagree with them when they refuse to. It doesn't matter if they're our members or not.'

Web sites: www.aapor.org and www.strategicvision.com .

All articles 2006-23 written and edited by Mel Crowther and/or Nick Thomas, 2024- by Nick Thomas, unless otherwise stated.