After the recent Virginia election, I heard an exit poll that reported the number one concern of the voters was economy. In another exit poll, I heard the big concern was how the China virus was handled. I guess if you check with five different polling outfits, you might get two, maybe three different answers.

My question is what was the question? Did they hand the voter a piece of paper with a list and tell the voter to select the most important. On the other hand, did they just ask, what was your most important concern. To me, this is important.

First, if you know a little about me, you know I don’t like surveys and I guess a poll is something of a survey. The problem with all surveys is that those conducting the survey generally have a horse in the race. So, they like to ask the questions in ways in which the replies might be a little skewed. Moreover, they like to include questions to which there are no proper answers. The one that really put a sour taste in my mouth a few years ago was the question, are you or are you not in favor of immigration? To me there is no proper answer. Obviously, the pollster was trying to create a poll that would show that most people are in favor of immigration while the truth is that most likely the majority believe as I do. I believe in legal and only legal immigration.

So my question to the pollsters is, did your question color your response? To me, the best question would be what was your most important concern? Even a list can color a response, especially if the person’s choice is not present. If the pollsters do use a list, at least they need to include a, “None of the above.”

And so it is that we are led to believe that school issues were of little import in the Virginia election. Is that really true, or is it that the pollsters got it wrong again? Did they ask the right questions in the right way?

By the way, for those interested, I do not answer surveys anymore at all. If someone were to ask me a question as I leave a voting place, I will lie through my teeth and give them all wrong answers. The only real vote that counts is the one I put in the voting box.