Political Poll - How do they know?

Forums › Off topic › Political Poll - How do they know?

allan

2044 posts

Uber Geek

ID Verified

Lifetime subscriber

#306826 24-Aug-2023 22:48

Got an automated call to my mobile phone to participate in a political poll - press 1 for National, 2 for Labour etc, but then we got to the specific electorate questions, which begs the question - given my mobile number is not published anywhere, how do they know what electorate I'm in?

(Have not put this in the Politics forum because it will just get buried there and this is not a politics question as such.)

mattwnz

20177 posts

Uber Geek

#3119955 24-Aug-2023 23:51

How do you know it wasn't a scam call? I got a similar automated call pretending to be from One NZ, and to press buttons for certain things.

These days many people tend to screen calls instead of answering them, by letting them go to their voicemail if they don't know the number.

Handle9

11409 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#3119964 25-Aug-2023 03:33

The nanobots from your Covid vaccine told them your number.

jamesrt

1612 posts

Uber Geek

ID Verified

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#3119990 25-Aug-2023 08:34

My electoral role details include my mobile number - I've just checked.

Maybe yours does too.....

Bung

6504 posts

Uber Geek

Subscriber

#3119998 25-Aug-2023 09:18

jamesrt:
My electoral role details include my mobile number - I've just checked.

Maybe yours does too.....

"We won’t give your phone numbers or email addresses

We don’t give phone numbers or email addresses to parties, candidates and MPs. However, they may find out how to contact you by combining the information we give with other information they collect." - Electoral Commission

MikeB4

18435 posts

Uber Geek

ID Verified

Trusted

#3120000 25-Aug-2023 09:23

Those pesky UAPs are everywhere

allan

2044 posts

Uber Geek

ID Verified

Lifetime subscriber

#3120061 25-Aug-2023 12:01

jamesrt:

My electoral role details include my mobile number - I've just checked.

Maybe yours does too.....

No it doesn't. I've also checked

KiwiSurfer

1464 posts

Uber Geek

ID Verified

Lifetime subscriber

#3120083 25-Aug-2023 13:02

Did it say specific names of candidates or just which party's candidate you would vote for (i.e. not "Joe Bloggs - Banana Party" but something generic like "the Banana Party representative in your electorate"). It may well be they're just wanting to know which 'party' you're voting for in the electorate vote generally rather than drilling it down to specific candidates in each electorate.

If it's the latter they're just being lazy or more interested in seeing how many people are split voting etc.

If it's the former, then yeah, it'd be interesting how they got hold of that information.

Quic Broadband

Move to New Zealand's best fibre broadband service (affiliate link). Free setup code: R587125ERQ6VE. Note that to use Quic Broadband you must be comfortable with configuring your own router.

Geektastic

17944 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#3120196 25-Aug-2023 19:35

5G brain wave monitoring.

allan

2044 posts

Uber Geek

ID Verified

Lifetime subscriber

#3120200 25-Aug-2023 20:00

KiwiSurfer:
Did it say specific names of candidates or just which party's candidate you would vote for (i.e. not "Joe Bloggs - Banana Party" but something generic like "the Banana Party representative in your electorate"). It may well be they're just wanting to know which 'party' you're voting for in the electorate vote generally rather than drilling it down to specific candidates in each electorate.

If it's the latter they're just being lazy or more interested in seeing how many people are split voting etc.

If it's the former, then yeah, it'd be interesting how they got hold of that information.

Yep specific names of candidates and the party they were representing. This followed the the initial party vote only questions.

Goosey

2838 posts

Uber Geek

Subscriber

#3121029 28-Aug-2023 06:06

By any chance did they just choose your number randomly based on geography.

I’m sure some telco marketing people have probally sold that service to punters who would use that and in this case….the pollsters.

edit…coffee just kicked in….basically service or etc etc you have signed up with your mobile number and then ticked the boxes on their t&c’s……someones sold their data (most likely based on location without any other details).