Did you read Saturday’s New Straits Times? The government just launched a “public opinion poll system”. More at NST:
The Government launched its public opinion poll system today, making Malaysia one of the few countries in the world where opinion polls are conducted by the public sector.
Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi launched the system, which uses the short messaging service (SMS) and the Internet, and said it was a professional and efficient way of obtaining public feedback.
The Public Complaints Bureau (PCB) is managing the polling system with the co-operation of telecommunications companies.
Using SMS, the public can submit their opinions on a given topic by keying in (for Biro Pengaduan Awam) and sending it to 36367.
They will receive a message which contains a question on the poll topic and multiple choice answers marked according to alphabets. They have to select the alphabet according to the answer of their choice and send it back to 36367.
A good effort but whatever it is, it needs to be sincere. Without sincerity, it will turn out like this:
To Singaporeans, happy voting and yeah, within this strip’s context of course.
p/s – Tried to follow Ajax-PSV match on www.tvants.com but the lag was unbearable. The match turned out to be 0-0. Many Ajacied expected a win but bah. Even those that watched the match think Ajax could have won. Still, next is Inter Milan.
One reply on “[746] Of Earthly Strip: Insincere Poll”
Lol, because our country’s papers are effectively the government’s publications arm, it will make no difference if we were to follow other Western nations and conduct polls through the major newspapers there. So I guess this is a good idea, in a way. Dispenses with appearances of media independence.
P.S. I wonder if the NST/Star/BH/UM would ever publish a poll that asks:
Is Abdullah Badawi An Effective PM?
Yes
No
From the general consensus, the results aren’t gonna be pretty…