Sometimes it all depends on how you ask the questions. Bill Stegmeier claims high numbers in his poll

In the Dakota Voice newspaper, Two-Star JAILer Bill Stegmeier is claiming high support according to a Zogby's poll that he commissioned.

While It's certainly not my intent to pooh pooh poll results out of hand, I will observe that it was Mark Twain who once remarked that there were three types of lies. Lies, damned lies and statistics.

Getting back to the story - here's what Bob had to write on the topic:

Bill Stegmeier of South Dakota Judicial Accountability says a Zogby International poll he commissioned for the upcoming vote on Amendment E has yielded some interesting results.

According to the Zogby poll conducted yesterday of 504 South Dakota likely voters, 67% say they will vote for Amendment E. Those who say they will vote against the measure are 19.8% and 13.2% are “not sure.” The poll has a +/- 4.5% margin.

The question asked of poll respondents was as follows:

Amendment E called the Judicial Accountability Amendment will be on the ballot this November. The amendment would allow the creation of a citizen's oversight committee or special grand jury which would hear complaints of alleged judicial misconduct against judges. If a judge is found guilty three times of having engaged in judicial misconduct, he or she would be removed from office and could never serve in any judicial capacity in South Dakota again. Will you vote for Amendment E or will you vote against Amendment E

Democrats say they will support the measure by 69.8%, Republicans by 62.2%, Independents by 72.5% and all three Libertarians polled said they would support the amendment.

Read it all here.

Now, the polling questions and numbers I'd really like to see are the ones that Bill isn't likely to tell any of us about. The response to questions such as "If you knew that Amendment E would cause your costs of insurance and credit to skyrocket in South Dakota, would you be more or less likely to support it?" are not the kind of things he wants to know the answer to.

There's also other potential polling questions, such as "If you were aware that Amendment E would make members of any board or commission liable for prosecution because they made a decision that someone didn't agree with would you be more or less likely to support it?" that you aren't hearing much of as well.

Finally, there's the other poll question that could ask "If you were aware that the South Dakota sponsor of Amendment E thought women who go by Ms. are probably lesbians who would enjoy a good spanking, would that make you more or less likely to support the measure?"

But I guess those didn't make the poll. Too bad.