Ecos Crying "Foul" Over Poll
Correcting Misrepresentations

SALT LAKE CITY, Utah — Polling drives everything in politics today, it seems, but critics have long contended that polls can be skewed by the questions that are asked and how they are presented.

Now a highly respected polling firm has proven that charge against its own industry — and it did it by following up on one of its own misleading polls.

The "corrected" poll, conducted by Wirthlin Worldwide, has environmental activists howling, because it makes a lie of their claim that the majority of Utah residents favor a massive increase in the amount of land locked away as "wilderness."

The new poll shows that approximately four of five Utah residents would apply a protective classification short of "wilderness" to nine million acres of public lands in the state. It flatly contradicts a poll Wirthlin conducted in July that found 75 percent of Utahns in favor of "wilderness" designation for the same land.

The first poll was commissioned by the Utah Wilderness Coalition, which apparently specified the questions to be asked and the "facts" upon which respondents were to base their opinions.

The reason for the dramatic difference between the two results, says Wirthlin senior vice president Dee Alsop, is that the earlier study didn't offer respondents alternatives to the wilderness designation. It was all or nothing.

So Wirthlin, after vouching for the accuracy of the first poll, took the unusual step of doing another at its own expense.

In the first survey, participants were told that 60 percent of the 22 million acres managed by the Bureau of Land Management in Utah had already been marred by human development. Based on that information — and given no other choice — 74 percent of the respondents said they would favor a wilderness designation to protect the remaining nine million acres.

The poll result surprised conservative interest groups and politicians who have been advocating a wilderness designation for only a fraction of the nine million acres. Critics pointed out that the poll question was blatantly "loaded" to elicit a desired response.

The new poll shows that when given specific choices, a majority of respondents would set aside only 2.34 million acres as wilderness.

Moreover, three-fourths of those surveyed for the second poll don't believe there has to be a tradeoff between economic growth and environmental quality. The result, based on interviews of 400 people across the state on Sept. 15 and 16, has a margin of error of plus or minus 4.9 percent.

So why two polls?

"It (the first poll) didn't give a full and complete picture," said Allsop. "We felt it did a good job of reflecting Utahns' love for their land, but there were concerns that some questions were not asked."

So Wirthlin returned to the field on its own initiative and expense to gauge public attitudes, "given a more complete set of the facts and options," Allsop said.