Polling: How it Works

This week's feature focuses on using polls to help determine what voters are thinking. "Learning from Citizens" explains the various kinds of polling, how to conduct polls, and costs of setting up focus groups.

-- Special thanks to the co-editors of the Poynter Election Handbook, Deborah Potter and Pete Weitzel.

Deborah Potter is executive director of NewsLab, a non-profit television news laboratory that works with local stations to develop new ways of telling complex or non-visual stories. Deborah spent 16 years as a network correspondent for CBS News and CNN, where she covered the White House, State Department, Congress, national politics, and the environment. From 1995 to 1998, she taught journalism at The Poynter Institute and also hosted the PBS program In the Prime.

Pete Weitzel is a former managing editor of the Miami Herald and visiting professional at Poynter. He's now a newspaper consultant and lives in Durham, NC.

Polling Resources

If you want to know more about polling and focus groups:

A Journalists Guide to Public Opinion Polls by Sheldon R. Gaweiser and G. Evans Witt

The Newsroom Guide to Polls and Survey by David H. Weaver and G. Cleveland Wilhoit.

The Newspaper Survival Book by Philip Meyer. The book is out of print but available from the author at the University of North Carolina.

An Introduction to Survey Research, Polling, and Data Analysis by Herbert F. Weisberg, Jon A. Krosnick, Bruce D. Bowen

"Election Polls: The Perils of Interpretation" by Kathleen A. Frankovic

Other Resources