Credibility of UW-Madison Voucher polling project questioned

Todd Finkelmeyer:

One Wisconsin Now argues:

** UW-Madison is receiving nearly $18,000 from the Wisconsin Policy Research Institute -- which One Wisconsin Now calls a "conservative think tank" -- for the polling project to cover a part of Goldstein's salary.

** Poll results showed a 46.6 percent to 42.4 percent statewide opposition to private school vouchers. However, due to political concerns, it appears WPRI President George Lightbourn was able to keep these numbers from being played up. In the end, references to statewide opposition to private school vouchers were not used in a press release touting the poll. Instead, a press release talking about the poll results put out on the UW-Madison website included only figures from Milwaukee County, where the majority supported vouchers.

"This is a lesson about the credibility and the trustworthiness of materials produced by the Wisconsin Policy Research Institute," Scot Ross, executive director of One Wisconsin Now, says in the press release. "If polling results don't fit its pro-voucher agenda, then those polling results are erased from the final analysis. Most unfortunately, the UW is now tied directly to this manipulation to serve the political agenda of WPRI."

One Wisconsin Now does extensive voter data collection and mining for certain candidates.

Posted by Jim Zellmer at January 22, 2010 1:01 AM
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