ROCHESTER — Members of the Rochester Concerned Taxpayers Association claim an out-of-state company engaged in a smear campaign against the tax cap proposal on the Nov. 4 ballot.
Push polling — the tactic in question, which entails pollsters using the guise of unbiased questioners to sway voters on an issue or election — has been condemned by the American Association of Political Consultants and is illegal when it comes to New Hampshire’s state elections, per RSA 664:16-a.
However, the law does not cover town or city elections, according to state Assistant Attorney General Jim Kennedy.
RCTA President Robert Gates said he was contacted Wednesday afternoon by a polling company that identified itself as Pacific Crest Research. He said the company invited him to take a survey on the tax cap, but almost every question framed the proposal in a negative light.
“Every question they asked in the survey began with ‘opponents of the tax cap say that,’ and then it would go on to list some negative implication about how a tax cap might decrease services in the city,” he said.
Gates said he became suspicious toward the end of the questioning and asked the pollster what organization had commissioned the survey. He was told to hold for a supervisor, he recalled, and in matter of seconds the line went dead.
“It was definitely a push poll,” Gates said. “I tried to find a number for the company and call them up afterward. I tried two numbers and got recordings saying the line had been disconnected both times.”
According to RSA 664:16-a, activities similar to push polling are not illegal as long as the pollster conducting the call immediately informs those being surveyed that the poll has been commissioned in support of, or against, a certain issue or candidate, and provides a telephone number for the location of where the polling is being conducted.
Gates said the person who contacted him met none of those requirements.
Pacific Crest Research, an independent polling company based in Ogden, Utah, has been connected with potential push polling at least twice before. Both instances were in New York, where there are no laws against the tactic.
The company, founded in 2001, was accused of push polling in March, during a legislative primary in Manhattan, and in 2005, when there was debate around a new sports arena in Brooklyn, according to published reports.
When asked about the RCTA’s claims, Pacific Crest’s director of polling would only confirm the company recently conducted a poll in the New Hampshire area.
“We don’t participate in push polling,” Michael Warren said when asked if his company ever engaged in push polling.
Warren refused to disclose any further information, including details on what the recent poll Pacific Crest conducted in New Hampshire focused on, how questions in the poll were worded and who requested the poll.