I'll leave it to others to discuss the finer points of polling, but that one of the polls showed a third of respondents might be (it wasn't entirely clear from the blurb I saw) in the "no opinion" category is interesting. I'd think the question of electing judges might be an opinion that is "inch deep": i.e., might be easily changed through political events or education.

 

For instance, it would be interesting to see how the recent judicial election battle in Iowa changed opinions there (too late to gather the data if it wasn't gathered).  It might still be possible to study this in Wisconsin. On the other hand, a campaign in a state not already facing a hot judicial election might see people open to changing their opinion (or developing one) on this if a concerted campaign was launched. Of course that is hard to do. but I sense opinions on some gay/lesbian rights issues have changed in bursts and fits over the past couple of decades that may have something to do with state election and ballot battles...so maybe it can be done in the middle of a fight. 

 

Overall, this is one of those topics where I'd rather see analysis of a well run focus group than just numbers from a simple survey.

 

-Doug