[Peace-discuss] New polls

[C. G. Estabrook]

	October 20, 2004
	POLL: AMERICANS EVENLY DIVIDED OVER WHICH POLL THEY BELIEVE
	Gallup, Zogby in Statistical Dead Heat

Americans are evenly divided over which presidential election poll they
believe, with the Gallup poll and the Zogby poll drawing roughly the same
number of likely voters, a new poll of likely voters reveals.

In the poll, taken by the University of Minnesota's Institute for Public
Opinion, 48% said they believed the Gallup poll and 47% trusted Zogby, a
statistical dead heat, says Dr. Davis Bevins, who supervised the survey
for the Institute.

"With just two weeks to go until the election, neither Gallup nor Zogby
has broken out," Dr. Bevins says. "It is really too close to call."

Perhaps in response to the ever-tightening race between the rival polling
companies, the competition between Gallup and Zogby has grown increasingly
nasty in recent days, with both companies airing expensive negative
television ads attacking each other.

In one particularly vicious attack ad, Gallup accused Zogby of
"flip-flopping" on whether Sen. John Kerry or President Bush was ahead in
the race.

But Zogby soon retaliated with an attack ad of its own, accusing Gallup of
having a lesbian daughter.

For his part, Dr. Bevins warns that the accuracy of his own poll may be
suspect since the voters in the survey were contacted exclusively by
phone:  "We find that a lot of people are unwilling to answer the phone
these days because they're afraid it might be Bill O'Reilly."

Elsewhere, election officials in Florida said that they have encountered a
new problem with their electronic voting machines and that the time-code
"12:00" will not stop blinking on and off.

http://www.borowitzreport.com/archive_rpt.asp?rec=988