Research 2000 Issues Cease & Desist Order to FiveThirtyEight

[MellowDem]

Source: FiveThirtyEight

About 15 minutes ago, I was sent a cease and desist demand by Howrey LLP, the lawfirm that Research 2000 has contracted with to defend it against Daily Kos, which is suing it for fraud based on evidence that its polling may have been fabricated.

The cease and desist letter, which is published below, attributes to FiveThrityEight statements that were made by others. It alleges that "you have engaged in a campaign to discredit and damage R2K by posting negative comments regarding Mr. Ali, the Company, and its work products on the "Daily Kos" blog. It further threatens a lawsuit, unless I "immediately cease and desist all such activities, and retract all previous publicly transmitted statements."

I emphatically stand behind any statements I have made about Research 2000, and will be constrained by nothing other than my common sense and my professional integrity in any comments I should elect to make about Research 2000 in the future.

Read more: http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2010/06/research-2000-issues-cease-desist.html

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I think Nate is starting to get at something that we really need. Some accountability for polling firms. He recently published some pollster ratings and got slammed by a bunch of pollsters for them. What's shocking is that there are no other pollster ratings out there and no real way to know if a pollster is faking data. There are ways that pollsters could "randomize" their data to make it impossible to tell if it was fraud. Strategic Visions LLC was another polling firm that Nate questioned earlier this year, and while its (Republican) clients never sued them, they have stopped doing any polling and look to have stopped while they were ahead.

You can read the letter in the link. I think it's maddening that pollsters can get away with such things so easily in this day and age. And polls do have real impacts on our politics.