I'm Just A Pollster

Yes, it's that time again :) At Elon, one of my favorite jobs to do is the Elon Poll. There we conduct surveys and call randomly selected numbers in the state of North Carolina. We ask them questions about their opinions on politics--whether they approve or disapprove of the performances of certain political figures, along with questions about current issues, particularly in North Carolina, such as questions pertaining to gun control, immigration, gay marriage, education, etc. I tell you what...some people can just be plain rude on the phone with you. The common response is an immediate 'click' after my introduction. Some people are in such shock that we called they ask, "How did you get this number? This is my cell phone!" LOL Let me just let you all in on a little secret if you didn't know....NOTHING YOU DO IS 100% PRIVATE OR CONFIDENTIAL. Your emails, your text messages, your social media inbox messages, your phone numbers. There are organizations such as the FBI who keep all these kinds of things on file, so don't be surprised if you get a call from a solicitor or a poll. If you have lots of money, you can pretty much buy any information you desire/need.

I digress, anyhow, some will get extremely buck on the phone (meaning very nasty) and yell things like "DON'T YOU EVER CALL THIS NUMBER AGAIN!"
What they don't realize is that we are college students for crying out loud and we are doing a public service. The survey data is used to help politicians and law makers make decisions and gage the opinion of the public and also the data is released to news outlets so the people can know what's going on. We're your friends guys! Yet, there are always those sweet people who don't mind sacrificing only 10 or so minutes of there time. Out of those who say yes, a hand full simply give 'yes' and 'no' responses which are great, but then there is a smaller portion out of the hand full who will give you insightful opinons and they fascinate me. I love this job because I learn so much.

On Saturday conducting the poll I talked to one male and one female who gave me some amazing opinons. For example one question asks if a you are in support of a legislative proposal to decrease the early voting period from 2 1/2 weeks to 1 1/2. The man told me, "I believe that there should be one grand day for voting and that should be a holiday. Everyone should have work off, we have holidays for everything else, but we don't have a holiday for the most important day in the country." Now that sounds reasonable right, but one woman said to me, "Well, if two weeks are as long as it takes for our soldiers and service men abroad to vote, then that's how long it should be." Another question was whether you believe that NC laws should make it easier or harder to obtain an abortion. Of course some people said that if a woman is raped, it should not be hard for her to get one; some said that if it's too easy to obtain young people will feel that it's okay to have fun and not take any precautionary measures and that's not right. Those with strong religious beliefs also agreed to make it harder or even impossible to obtain. When a question came up about education, the man I mentioned said to me, "So many parents use school essentially as a daycare and abuse the system because they feel that education is a right. Well, I believe education is a privilege and if I child is misbehaving in school, then they should be removed." Immigration and gun control are other topics in which I get a lot of insightful perspectives about.

I could go on and on for days about the things people have said but all in all, the poll has taught me not to discriminate people based on their political party affiliations or religious beliefs (not that I did before, but I've even more open minded then I was before). I find that not matter the party affiliations of religious beliefs, most people think rather rationally and want the best for their families and loved ones. For example, when I was young I was taught by society to think that all white Republicans hate black people and are usually rich and greedy. That is terribly far from the truth and in my history classes as even Hispanics, blacks and other minorities are identify as Republicans as well. I've learned that political parties in the U.S. and abroad are constantly changing their overall platforms. What do I mean, so the Republican party today in the U.S. is not what it what was 50 or some 100 years ago and vice versa. The Tea Party now, is definitely not what is was some 100 years ago. The democratic party today was not always are liberal as it is now. A professor taught us that the party symbols were made to make obvious statements. The orignal use of the donkey as a symbol was not a good thing, as Andrew Jackson was considered by some a jackass. The elephant was meant to symbolize majesty and strength. Though there are different versions of the story behind the symbols, now we give these symbols positive meanings for the most part, which was not always the case.

So what's the big picture here?...I suppose from observation and hearing hundreds of people's perspectives that thought processes evolve overtime and change. We can only hope that our thought processes and government will continue to evolve in the right direction. This without a doubt means compromise, because people will naturally have different viewpoints on issues and we can only come to reasonable solutions if both sides are willing to compromise. But after all what do I know....I'm just a pollster :) lol