WASHINGTON – A recent sham poll that fabricated public responses is part of a "newly emerging phenomenon" that experts say could erode confidence in legitimate election forecasting, mortgage rate analysis and even Super Bowl predictions.
But although one such survey admitted fabricating data this week, experts told USA TODAY that dishonest polling represents a tiny fraction that hasn't made a meaningful dent in public confidence.
"Trust in institutions is really important in a democracy, so we always want high levels of trust," said Mary Losch, president of the American Association for Public Opinion Research. "But i think it’s really important to recognize that these are rare events . . . We don't want to paint the entire industry with a brush
that should be aimed at a small number."
The recent deception involved a group called Wedgewood Polls which published polling covering high-profile Senate races ahead of the midterms.
It’s unclear whether the group will face legal action after they admitted to publishing "fabricated numbers." The group’s website has since gone dark and attempts to reach them have gone unanswered.
According to experts, the group’s fabrications are worrying but should not have a broader effect on polling, from pre-election questionnaires to major American surveys including the nation’s decennial census and the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
In the end, according to the experts interviewed by USA TODAY, average citizens are hurt the most by such deceptions because public trust is undermined.
"They create a haze of skepticism across the entire polling industry," Sunshine Hillygus, a Duke University political science professor, said of sham and low-quality polls. "So much of our functioning of society relies on survey data, and if people don’t trust polls, they’re going to be less likely to participate, and then we have a harder time with government functioning."
Polling for well over a century has been a staple of American life, especially in local and national political races, major sports events and even in supermarkets, where questions are frequently asked about what stores and brands Americans prefer.
'Emerging phenomenon'
Wedgewood is not alone in facing scrutiny. FiftyPlusOne, a non-partisan website that tracks political polling and first raised questions about Wedgewood, has questioned the authenticity of the data from at least one other group whose website has since gone dark.
The Los Angeles Times also uncovered a group, called Median Strategies, that was publishing bogus numbers. Median Strategies said its polling operation was a "social experiment." The company sent "purported polling information" for political races in Los Angeles, Wisconsin and Nevada.
“Median Strategies was created as a short-term social experiment to examine how purported polling information could enter and spread through the political information ecosystem without independent verification,” the company said in an email to The Times. “We are not seeking publicity or attribution for the individuals involved and are declining interviews.”
The recent cases represent a "newly emerging phenomenon," Thad Kousser, a political science professor at the University of California San Diego, told USA TODAY.
Survey research used to be a relatively small industry but over the last two decades the number of new polling organizations has exploded, Kousser said. With so many companies pumping out data, he said fake results don’t "raise as many eyes as they would have in the past."
Kousser recommended researching a polling organization’s record before putting weight into its latest survey results. The American Association for Public Polling Research provides a list of organizations that adhere to the group's polling methodology transparency standards.
Voters wary of polling accuracy
When 32-year-old Mabel Gray heard about the recent fake polls, she said it reinforced her skepticism of election surveys.
"It’s very easy to be manipulated by things you see online," Gray said, near her home in Brooklyn, New York.
For others, such as 34-year-old Alexandra Wellingham, questions about the reliability of polling started in 2016. That's when national surveys showed Hillary Clinton leading Donald Trump before he won the presidential election.
"We all thought she had it in the bag because the polls were so wrong," she said.
Pollsters have defended the veracity of their work. In the case of 2016, many have pointed to the fact that Clinton won the popular vote, as national surveys suggested she would.
Kousser, the University of California San Diego professor, said he worries a lack of proper vetting of pollsters by media companies and social media users may "create a lack of confidence in the polling industry even when the polling industry did nothing to deserve it."
Role played by AI
Political analysts say factors behind the uptick in questionable polls include decreasing funding for high-quality research, growing interest in the outcomes of political horse races and artificial intelligence making it easier for fraudsters to produce material that looks legitimate.
AI’s potential unwitting role in dishonest polling includes everything from allowing fraudsters to produce data that looks plausible to AI bots skewing survey results in a particular direction.
"It’s one of the consequences of AI and how much the world is changing because of it," David Dutwin, the executive director of the AmeriSpeak research group, said. "But in general the industry and media outlets will probably pretty quickly start to tailor their techniques to do a better job at catching these."
Dutwin compared the issues to fake AI-generated imagery, saying fact checkers will need to become as adept at catching fake polls as they are at catching fake videos.
A silver lining
Without oversight, experts say, fake polls could sow broader distrust in the type of polling that determines major policy decisions, from adjusting federal interest rates to determining where to build hospitals.
But there is a potential "silver lining" according to Dutwin and others.
"There’s a silver lining here that the media will revise their methods to verify that polling groups provide rock solid verification of their identities and transparency of methodologies," Dutwin said. "Paradoxically the more fraud is prevalent, the more people are realizing the value of the scientific method."
Hillygus, the Duke University researcher, said she hopes the issue will spur the public to reinvest in high-quality research.
"These threats of the proliferation of bad polling just makes it that much more important that we protect and invest in high-quality surveys," she said. "In that soup of bad polling, the only way we’re going to know it’s bad is if we have some benchmark gold standard surveys still being conducted."
Contributing by USA TODAY Senior National Political Correspondent Sarah D. Wire.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Fake polls: Should America be worried about survey integrity?
