Who Watches the Number Crunchers?

Vigilant readers may recall my April 29, 2018 article entitled “Observations and Omissions.”

The second point of that piece dealt with a telephone survey that was fielded back in mid-April of 2018.  The question summaries I scribbled down while answering the interviewer’s queries can be found below.  As you will see, there is a decided focus on candidates and issues of particular interest for Howard County’s Fourth Council District.

So, I thought I would look through the recent campaign finance filings, to see who might have been the wallet behind the study.  It was conducted with (at least one) live human interviewer (who wasn’t that good, but I have heard worse), the instrument seemed to have been at least reviewed, if not drafted, by a market research professional, they had access to a telephone sample, and the results must have been processed and analyzed.  In short, at minimum, direct costs would have run at least a few thousand dollars…if they ran the survey on the cheap while still using professionals at various points in the process.

Since I haven’t seen any media reporting on this survey, we can discount any news organizations as the sponsor.  There was no County Executive Ballot Test, so I doubt it was a County-wide campaign that was digging around doing some CC4 subsample work.  A third party organization, such as group of developer interests or another professional association…possibly but 1) I don’t think they would field a survey like this until after the Primary and 2) I believe they would have hired a more professional outfit to conduct the survey.  It is possible that a party organization could have fielded this survey (but again, why those questions and why before the Primary Election?) and I believe that they would have hired a more serious polling firm to gather the data.

There was definitely a bit of a DIY feel to that mid-April research effort. 

I think it was a candidate campaign or a group with a close affiliation to one of the candidates running in CC4.  And they would need some money/resources to field it.  I don’t know why Lisa Kim would field the survey I outlined below (note “Lisa Kim” was not even tested).  And IBMK doesn’t have the resources.  That leaves Deb Jung or Janet Siddiqui or some person or entity close to one of them as the sponsor.  And I am certain that Jung hasn’t fielded a poll, so really, it comes down to Siddiqui or a Siddiqui-affiliated entity as the likely survey funder.

Remember how I said that I didn’t know if the telephone interviewer said they were with “SSI” (a national survey research firm best known for providing telephone sample to pollsters) or “SSSI” (which stands for Scientific Systems and Software International, a firm with Nayab Siddiqui…the husband of Janet Siddiqui…as an executive officer)?  Well, looking at the most recent Siddiqui campaign finance report’s in-kind contributions, there are three listed for Scientific Systems and Software International…all on 3/14/2018.  Adding them together, they amount to $755.  These contributions occurred approximately a month before the survey was fielded.  All three of these contributions were for “advertising,”  I think one of those was for the now infamous ad in the River Hill Villager where the Siddiqui campaign neglected to add the authority line.  I don’t see anything else in their report that connected to a survey or any other line items mentioning Scientific Systems and Software International. 

So we find ourselves back at the original questions: 1) who fielded the survey?  2) shouldn’t this survey have appeared on someone’s campaign finance report? 3) if yes to point two, was it just buried somewhere odd or was it omitted…accidentally or intentionally?

It is possible that whoever fielded this poll had a decent phone sample in their possession, had a volunteer or volunteers conducting the interviews (bad form by the way, and it would have taken…at minimum… a couple hundred labor hours for data collection alone, even with a ridiculously small sample size in the N=150 range), and had the ability to run an analysis using a statistical software package.  In short, theoretically, it could have been done without formal expenditures or as something that should be labeled as an in-kind contribution, but frankly, I doubt it.

Sometimes, polls are rolled up as part of a consultant fee…but again, I am not seeing anything that stands out as a line-item that might also include survey research costs.

So, in the interest of transparency, will the survey sponsor please identify themselves and explain why the survey can’t be found in the campaign finance report?

Stay tuned, as more will follow.

The survey questions:

Favorability on a 0 - 100 scale:
1. Larry Hogan
2. HoCo Fire Dept.
3. HoCo Teachers
4. Real estate developers
5. Ho Co Police Dept
6. Calvin Ball
7. Ho Co Board of Education
8. Mary Kay Sigaty
9. Deb Jung
10. Ho Co Conservancy
11. Allan Kittleman
12. Janet Siddiqui
13. Ian Bradley Muller Knudsen
14. Jim Rouse

15. CC 4 Ballot Test: Deb Jung vs. Others

16. Co Council Priorities

17. School Quality

18. Schools in Neighborhood

19. Better/Worse Schools in HoCo

20. #1 Priority (promote equity, teacher pay, etc...)

21. Sanctuary
22. Development of Downtown Columbia and Village Centers
23. More restaurants and entertainment
24. Public transportation /easing traffic
25. Balancing budget/w/o reducing services
26. Developers fair share–
27. More jobs
28. Preventing over-development
29. HoCo schools best in state

Downtown Columbia
30. Development or more dining options
31. Develop or too much as-is