[EL] Strange PPP poll results about ACORN

[Lowenstein, Daniel]

         I believe the PPP poll is respected across the political spectrum and I don't find anything implausible in the poll result that Mark reports, such that it would cause me to doubt the competency of the polling organization.  A person who believes that a defunct organization is likely to steal the election is, by definition, someone not more than vaguely familiar with the organization.  Also, probably, a rather ingenuous person when it comes to opinions on such matters.  It seems to me quite plausible that such a person would have heard in a vague way that ACORN is a group up to mischief and might be inclined to assume that the group is probably of the opposite political persuasion.  That is, a Democrat would assume ACORN is probably Republican and a Republican would assume it is probably Democratic.  Each would be equally likely to assume the group is up to nefarious activity.

          I'm not saying I would have predicted this result in advance but, seeing the result, it does not strike me as improbable.

             Best,

             Daniel H. Lowenstein
             Director, Center for the Liberal Arts and Free Institutions (CLAFI)
             UCLA Law School
             405 Hilgard
             Los Angeles, California 90095-1476
             310-825-5148


________________________________
From: law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu [law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu] On Behalf Of Scarberry, Mark [Mark.Scarberry at pepperdine.edu]
Sent: Saturday, July 21, 2012 12:31 AM
To: Election law list
Subject: [EL] Strange PPP poll results about ACORN

I still can’t find the actual PPP poll that Ben Adler referenced, but I did find a PPP poll released in September 2010 that shows nearly as many Democrats as Republicans believing that ACORN would steal the 2010 congressional elections: 21% vs. 23%. See p. 10 of the pdf file at http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/pdf/PPP_Release_National_914.pdf. At p. 7 it seems to show (if I’m reading the crosstabs chart correctly) that 24% of liberals thought ACORN would steal the election as compared to 25% of conservatives.

All of this even though PPP says that ACORN was defunct by that time: “Despite being a defunct organization, 20% of Americans still think ACORN will steal this fall’s election for the Democrats, though twice as many, 40%, do not think this will happen.”

I am not left with much confidence in PPP’s polling on ACORN.

Mark S. Scarberry
Professor of Law
Pepperdine Univ. School of Law