The only thing that really counts in an election is when each person is guaranteed the right to vote. When eligible voters cast their votes, the end result should be vox populi, the people have spoken.
However, long before voters get to voice their choice they are robbed of the chance to vote impartially by a blitz of media polls. It isn’t that everyone is influenced by election polls. Some certainly vote independent-minded and many with their minds already long made-up.
Unquestionably, though, pre-election polls must have by their very nature a potential undue influence on voting patterns. Likewise, the more frequently poll results appear in the media increases the possibility of undue influence.
In one sense, you could say that the opinion takers, as it turns out, are also the opinion makers.
Is it possible that a steady stream of seesaw election polling could sway an uncomfortably significant margin of people by the time they ever get to cast their ballots?
While elections are about awareness and choice, polling should be left in the voting booth.
David Crockett
Cumberland
Editorials
Don’t let polls taken by the media influence your vote
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150th birthday
West Virginians will be in a celebratory mood Thursday when the state’s sesquicentennial is marked in scores of events across the Mountain State.
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Freedom isn’t exactly what he thinks it is
In the June 2 Times-News, R. Steele Selby (“Just how free are we?) defines freedom as “the capacity to do whatever he or she wants to do” and asserts that this definition is “most likely nearly universal.”
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What Maryland calls the Fair Share Act isn’t fair at all
The Fair Share Act was passed in 2009. This law allowed for service fees to be part of the collective bargaining process.
The law does not mandate that service fees be negotiated, it simply provides that they can be. -
It’s not new
America’s governments have always afforded us what’s called “a double-edged sword” — one that cuts both ways — when it comes to the contrasting ideas of openness and security.
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This summer:
You can do your kids a favor this summer by getting them involved in reading.
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Western Md. Veterans continues its mission
My name is Dan Brashear, I am the founder and director of Western Maryland Veterans.
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Maybe the cyclists and casino workers should be armed
Again, unfortunately I have to remind Don Carns Jr. of Beans Cove, Pa., on his latest repeatedly inaccurate letter published June 10 in the Cumberland Times-News (“Township is nothing like either Pittsburgh or Philadelphia”).
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Let’s all kick in $1 to help save Frostburg’s Palace Theatre
As a former resident, I have many fond memories of the Palace Theatre (“Theater wall crumbles: Palace exterior collapses, unfit for entry: officials,” June 6 Times-News, Page 1A).
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Close call
Thanks to a routine inspection, what could well have been a major disaster has been averted at Westmar Middle School’s football field.
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Develop the waterway
Since the debate over removing the dam started about four years ago, I have been concerned about the effect the dam removal would have on the area’s welfare.
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