A straw poll or straw vote is a vote with nonbinding results. Straw polls provide dialogue among movements within large groups. In meetings subject to rules of order, impromptu straw polls often are taken to see if there is enough support for an idea to devote more meeting time to it, and (when not a secret ballot) for the attendees to see who is on which side of a question. However, Robert's Rules of Order prohibits straw polls, calling them "meaningless and dilatory" because they subvert the deliberative charge of deliberative bodies. Among political bodies, straw polls often are scheduled for events at which many people interested in the polling question can be expected to vote. Sometimes polls conducted without ordinary voting controls in place (i.e., on an honor system, such as in online polls) are also called "straw polls".
The idiom may allude to a straw (thin plant stalk) held up to see in what direction the wind blows, in this case, the wind of group opinion.
Read more about Straw Poll: United States Politics, Other Types of Polls
Famous quotes containing the words straw and/or poll:
“The tender skin does not shrink from bayonets, the timid woman is not scared by fagots; the rack is not frightful, nor the rope ignominious. The poor Puritan, Antony Parsons, at the stake, tied straw on his head when the fire approached him, and said, “This is God’s hat.””
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“If Rosa Parks had taken a poll before she sat down in that bus in Montgomery, she’d still be standing.”
—Mary Frances Berry (b. 1938)