The February 2008 edition of the CIRCLIST website made reference to three online polls being conducted on the website http://www.opinion.com.au. The page was removed from CIRCLIST in August of the same year, although the polls were (as at 14.February.2010) still running. Let’s now revisit them to see what has happened in the meantime and try to explain the major turn-around in their findings.

If you want to view the original CIRCLIST page, drop this URL into The Wayback Machine :
http://www.circlist.com/preferences/surveyresults.html.

Question asked:  “Women, What do you prefer - circumcision or uncircumcision?”

Response Options	February 2008		February 2010
	Votes	Percentage	Votes	Percentage
Circumcision	Unknown	70%	1579	41%
Uncircumcision	Unknown	30%	2313	59%

Are we to believe that, in a period of two years, Australian women have switched from being 70:30 in favour of circumcision to roughly 60:40 against? Or is something else going on here? Let’s check out the polling system.

• Does the polling mechanism exclude male voters from what is supposed to be a female-only vote? - No.
  
  
• Does the polling mechanism exclude non-Australian voters? - No, despite the technical possibility of so doing by analysing the IP address of the voter.
  
  
• Can the results be viewed prior to voting? - Yes, although the likely influence of this may be small in this instance.
  
  
• Is multiple voting possible? - Yes, even from the same IP address during the same session.
  
  
• Are the response options unambiguous and complete? - Maybe not. "Uncircumcision" can refer either to being uncircumcised or to the process of foreskin restoration. However, this is a minor criticism compared with the most glaing deficiency here, the possibility of multiple voting by 'intactivists'.

Is CIRCLIST’s criticism itself watertight? - Well, not quite. It would have been preferable to have known the voter numbers from February 2008, so as to exclude the possibility of a very small sample size. However, judging by the serial number of the poll, it had been running for some considerable time before February 2008.

You can check out this poll yourself, here: http://www.opinion.com.au/3343_#

Question asked:  “Should circumcision be re-introduced for all boys?”

Response Options	February 2008		February 2010
	Votes	Percentage	Votes	Percentage
Yes - it’s cleaner and helps prevent AIDS	Unknown	92%	934	17%
No - it’s painful and foreskins are fun	Unknown	8%	5217	83%

Are we to believe that, in a period of two years, Australians have switched from being 92:8 in favour of boyhood circumcision to roughly 84:16 against? Or is something else going on here? Once again, let’s check out the polling system.

• Does the polling mechanism exclude non-Australian voters? - No.
  
  
• Can the results be viewed prior to voting? - Yes.
  
  
• Is multiple voting possible? - Yes.

Is CIRCLIST’s criticism itself watertight? - Again, not quite. It would have been preferable to have known the voter numbers from February 2008, so as to exclude the possibility of a very small sample size.

You can check out this poll yourself, here: http://www.opinion.com.au/6357_#

Question asked:  “Are you for or against male circumcision?”

Response Options	February 2008		February 2010
	Votes	Percentage	Votes	Percentage
Yes - all boys should be done at birth	Unknown	Unknown	2745	22%
No - they should be left natural	Unknown	Unknown	4613	37%
The child should decide when he is old enough	Unknown	2%	5100	41%

Are we to believe that, in a period of two years, Australians have moved from 2% supporting the child being the one to decide to 41% taking that view? What was a tiny minority vote has become the largest single response! Yet again, let’s check out the polling system.

• Does the polling mechanism exclude non-Australian voters? - No.
  
  
• Can the results be viewed prior to voting? - Yes, and in this instance influence is more likely because voters are not faced with a straight yes/no choice.
  
  
• Is multiple voting possible? - Yes.
  
  
• Are the response options unambiguous and complete? - No. Many Islamic societies circumcise just before puberty, as a cultural norm rather than on the the boy’s own initiative. The response options are clearly incomplete and leave out a large proportion of child circumcisions. The effect of this omission is likely to be to bias responses against circumcision; those favouring pre-pubertal circumcision on parental initiative are likely to move on without voting.

Is CIRCLIST’s criticism itself watertight? - Well, not quite. It would have been preferable to have known all the data from February 2008. However, judging by the serial number of the poll, it had been running for some considerable time before February 2008, thus acquiring adequate sample size by that date.

You can check out this poll yourself, here: http://www.opinion.com.au/2236_#

The ease with which multiple voting can be achieved on the opinion.com.au website gives rise to a strong suspicion that the results have been deliberately skewed by 'intactivists'. Even if all the other identified defects in these polls were to be corrected, multiple voting would still render the results meaningless.

A somewhat more secure voting system exists within Yahoo Groups; there one can only vote more than once by having multiple Yahoo IDs. But even Yahoo isn’t perfect.

Moral:  Never trust the results of a survey without delving into the data collection methodology.

To return to the previous page that you were viewing, please use the BACK button of your browser. Alternatively, click on a link in the text above or choose another topic from the navigation panel below.

CIRCLIST Home Page	Latest News	Glossary  & Anatomy	Considering Circumcision?	Styles & Results	Instruments & Techniques	TOP of this page
	Preferences & Experiences	Rites & Traditions	Circumcision and the Law	Femcirc and FGM	Statistical Surveys
	History of Circumcision	Photography advice	Academic Corner	Site Map	Resources elsewhere

Copyright © 1992 - 2013,  All Rights Reserved CIRCLIST.