The Influence of Polls

Paper Summary:

This paper asserts that polls have very little influence in the political realm because, in today's political environment, the individual voter is becoming less and less influential in politics .

From the Paper:

"Although the frequency of polling the American voter may have increased, the influence of the individual American voter has decreased. Instead, special interest factions have greater sway upon the votes of politicians and the words of the media. Of course, as observed by James Madison, "different interests necessarily exist in different classes of citizens." But in the Federalist Paper No.51, James Madison also cautioned against the potentially dangerous and overly influential role of factionalism in American politics. "In a society under the forms of which the stronger faction can readily unite and oppress the weaker, anarchy may as truly be said to reign as in a state of nature, where the weaker individual is not secured against the violence of the stronger; and as, in the latter state, even the stronger individuals are prompted, by the uncertainty of their condition, to submit to a government which may protect the weak as well as themselves; so, in the former state, will the more powerful factions or parties be gradually induced, by a like motive, to wish for a government which will protect all parties, the weaker as well as the more powerful." (Madison, 1789) In other words, everyone is a part of different factions, at different times. But a government that strives to represent all peoples is the most equitable, because if only one faction is represented, the weaker factions or minority voices will be suppressed-and because everyone is a minority group in some shape or form, even if he or she is part of the majority group in other spheres of his or her life, ultimately a government that serves the individual is best, rather than a government that serves special interests."

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