‘KILKENNY PEOPLE Hunting Poll pointless’- It's rigged for sure.

kilkenny | animal rights | opinion/analysis

Friday November 28, 2008 11:28

by Bernie Wright - Association of Hunt Saboteurs

PO Box 4734. Dublin.1

087 2651720

Polls irrelevant, Yes or no -hunting is animal abuse.

The AOHS have contacted (Laura Keys) at the Kilkenny People newspaper who have confirmed that online opinion polls are open to mass voting by lobby groups.
We alerted our supporters to the vote online but realise that as this poll is running for a week till Tuesday it means nothing in terms of real analysis.

The votes in favour of ‘foxhunting being discontinued’ have fluctuated from over 80% in favour to just below 50% at other times. Its like a game show, excuse the pun, and the site itself easily allows repeat voting, it is readily open to abuse which makes it all irrelevant. The newspaper have now confirmed they are well aware of the mass-voting aspect.

“For this reason I think it's pointless to participate in these "polls".
They are totally unscientific, are easily rigged, and only really exist to drive traffic to the sites to boost their advertising revenue.

The votes in favour of ‘foxhunting being discontinued’ have fluctuated from over 80% in favour to just below 50% at other times. Its like a game show, excuse the pun, and the site itself easily allows repeat voting, it is readily open to abuse which makes it all irrelevant. The newspaper have now confirmed they are well aware of the mass-voting aspect.

“For this reason I think it's pointless to participate in these "polls".
They are totally unscientific, are easily rigged, and only really exist to drive traffic to the sites to boost their advertising revenue.
I think it is best if people actually vote for the opposite of what they think, then the polls are exposed for how meaningless they are. In fact, we have just gone to the poll and voted numerous time IN FAVOUR of foxhunting, and I would recommend everyone does the same.

Anyway, the people who run them can easily see if people are voting multiple times by looking at your IP address. So they could expose one side or the other as "cheating" if they really wanted. But I think they probably don't really care, because having large numbers of hits is the main thing for them, so they have figures to show advertisers how popular their site is.”

We do acknowledge the existence of more accurate market research, however most questionaires are compiled with somewhat leading questions and set answers.

Bernie Wright
Press Officer.AOHS.
087 2651720