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[AK] 'Election Research' poll was used to swing votes for GOP
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| Contributor | ArmyDem |
| Last Edited | ArmyDem May 16, 2004 07:57pm |
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| Category | News |
| News Date | Sunday, May 16, 2004 06:00:00 AM UTC0:0 |
| Description | RUEDRICH: Investigation into ethics turned up unusual polling-marketing campaign.
By RICHARD MAUER
Anchorage Daily News
(Published: May 16, 2004)
Last October, just days before the municipal election, phones started ringing at the 10,206 households of Juneau and Douglas. At the dialing end of the call was a computer owned by a high-tech telemarketing company from Herndon, Va. A Juneau resident answering the other end of the line heard a voice say, "This is Election Research with a 45-second political survey."
If residents stuck with the call and spoke "yes" or "no" in a voice clear enough for the computer to understand, they learned that three local candidates had paid for the "survey."
What they weren't told is that this was no ordinary public opinion poll, where individual responses are pooled for statistical purposes and no single person's private thoughts recorded in a way that could later identify them.
As the computer gathered the answers, it stored each one individually, making it possible to retrieve them later by phone number, household name or address for other purposes. These calls and thousands of others were also placed in the Matanuska-Susitna Borough that week.
Though Alaska's local elections are officially nonpartisan, the mass phoning was organized by Republican leaders -- state party boss Randy Ruedrich, vice chair Paulette Simpson of Douglas and Justin Stiefel, then chief of staff for U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski and now her campaign manager. |
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