Election polling, like the 2016 presidential campaign, can sometimes be confusing. To help cut through the clutter, AAPOR has just published a series of informational backgrounders on critical aspects of election polling.
We are just eight weeks until the opening of registration for the 2016 AAPOR Annual Conference! My experience as Conference Chair has really taught me a lot about what it takes to pull off a great event like the AAPOR Conference, which is to say, it takes a lot of people! Yes, Jen Dykema and I have been, how do I put it? BUSY.
An End-of-Year Thank You
As we come to the end of 2015, the Membership and Chapter Relations (MCR) Committee sends a heartfelt thank you to the more than 2200 members of AAPOR. AAPOR members are a dedicated group, putting in many hundreds of hours to AAPOR Committees and Task Forces, presenting and attending AAPOR’s webinars, short courses, and annual conference, sending thousands of emails to colleagues over AAPORnet and facilitating the success of AAPOR’s seven chapters in many ways. AAPOR’s success as a professional organization is because of you!
I know this can be a busy time of year, but that gives us all the more reason to take the time to reflect on our accomplishments. In 2015, AAPOR has:
The TI wrapped up its first official year of operation in early October 2015, having completed processing and admission of 77 survey organizations as Charter Members. This exceeded our expectations and we are very pleased with the strong commitment to the principle of transparency of research methodology that many of the leading organizations in our Association have taken by formally affiliating with this effort. The complete list of Charter Members can be found on AAPOR’s web site. These organizations represent 26 states, as well as the District of Columbia. One organization from Mexico has also joined the TI as a Charter Member. The TI Coordinating Committee continues to develop new online materials to support the Transparency Initiative, and we look forward to welcoming new members during our second year of operation.
It seems that a day (or an hour) doesn’t go by without another article hitting my email (and AAPORnet!) critical of polls and how they are doing in terms of predicting electoral outcomes; discussing the latest worries about the recent FCC rulings on the TCPA; or declaring the demise of traditional survey methods. Many of us in all our various roles and diverse sectors of the survey research community are paying close attention to these important topics, as is your AAPOR Council. In our AAPOR 2025 Strategic Vision we state that we are an organization that promotes our core values – “collegiality, integrity, rigor, transparency and intellectual-sharing in the advancement of knowledge, collaboration, and education.” We use these core values in organizing and shaping our activities.
​Did you know that over 100 people move to Austin every day? Yup, that is the current best estimate (of course demographers don’t all fully agree with this assessment…who would think that survey researchers could ever disagree with one another??!). And every week brings us closer to visiting this dynamic, colorful, and growing city in the Lone Star State.
On July 10, 2015 the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) released a new order regarding clarification of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) rules and regulations regarding autodialers and cell phones. The new interpretation of the rules have caused much concern among many AAPOR members who currently conduct telephone survey research.
Your AAPOR Executive Council just finished two days of in-person meetings where we tackled a wide range of topics including the various mentoring opportunities we currently provide and how we might enhance them in the future.
Andrew Kohut, president of AAPOR 1994-1995, died September 8 in Baltimore.