Opinion Polls on iwight.com

Opinion polls on iwight.com are a useful part of the website which allow people to express their views on topical questions.

We have had a number of questions about the poll and we'd like to answer some of those here.

Can I vote more than once?

You can vote on the opinion poll once a day from a PC. When you vote we write a 'cookie' to your PC which stops you voting again in the next 24 hours. We also record the IP address of the computer which has voted so that we monitor if people are trying to 'spam' the opinion poll and we can remove those results. The cookie is completely anonymous, it doesn't record any personal information about you - nor does it record information on how you voted - it is purely to tell whether a vote has been made from a particular computer within the previous 24 hours.

Unfortunately there are some downsides to this - people who share computers can only vote once in a day for example.

The way the poll is currently set up is a reasonable compromise between allowing as many people to vote as easily as possible, and security, with certain measures in place to stop the poll being abused.

Are results from the opinion polls used by the Council when setting policy?

No. Largely because of the points made above in relation to people being able to vote more than once it would be inappropriate for the Council to use the results when setting policy or making decisions.

The poll carries the following legend: "Results are indicative and do not necessarily reflect public opinion. Results are not used by the Council when setting policy."

Why are the questions often general?

The questions are often deliberately set so as not to cause conflicts with things such as specific current planning applications. Also, it may not be appropriate for us to ask questions which directly relate to current decisions being considered by the Council.

How long do opinion polls stay on the website?

Generally opinion polls stay on the site for approximately 1 month, however depending on the popularity and / or relevance of the poll this can sometimes vary.

Why is a particular voting option pre-selected?

To comply with accessibility guidelines we do have to pre-select one of the voting options. However this changes on an equal basis.

Thus visitors to the site have an equal chance of having either of the options pre-selected. You can test this yourself provided you have not voted. (If you have voted you will get the results screen.) Before voting refresh the page several times using the refresh icon or ctrl and F5. If you do this you will see how the pre-selected voting option changes.

If you have any further questions about the poll please contact the webteam.