Your phone buzzes. Could it be a friend inviting you to happy hour? Your partner sharing the song they can’t stop listening to? Your coworker sending you a TikTok? 

Nope! It’s a poll asking for your thoughts on local election issues. 

Maybe it’s from a recognizable academic institution like Marist or Siena colleges, or a company with a dubiously bland title like “Research-Polls.” If you click the link in the text, you’ll be taken to a separate web page where you can answer questions about your views on the races for mayor, comptroller, public advocate or City Council. 

But with the number of scam texts going around, you’d be forgiven for not wanting to click on a link from an unknown number.

“Obviously people are getting texts all the time from God knows what, so that’s troublesome to pollsters because we would prefer that people have a little more trust in what they’re getting,” said Nick Gourevitch, a lead pollster and president at Global Strategy Group, a public affairs firm. 

If you’re getting these texts, here’s why — and what to do once you get them. 

Why am I getting so many texts?

One reason that poll texts are so common? They’re cheap.

“It’s cheaper than doing door-to-door targeted survey questions and standing there in front of an individual,” said Denny Salas from Gotham Polling and Analytics. (Gotham Polling is not working with any mayoral campaigns; they did release this poll about the race in February).  

If you’re getting a lot of local political texts, that’s probably because you’ve voted in a city primary before — or even more than one.

According to Salas, since pollsters are looking to survey people who are likely to vote, the best way to anticipate that is to look at who has voted in the past. The main survey targets are what they call “prime” voters. Salas says they buy records from companies like L2 Data to know who to survey. 

“If you’re a triple prime voter, that means you are someone who has voted in the last three primary elections. Double prime, same thing, just the last two,” he explained. 

“If you’re one of those double prime, triple prime voters, I feel bad for you at the end of the day, because every candidate is targeting you,” said Salas.

How can I spot a scam?

The rules for spotting a political text scam are similar to spotting any scam: if it’s asking for personal information, or promising something Salas calls “too good to be true” like a big payoff, you might want to steer clear.

“If any of them are asking for any personal information — your Social Security number, your name, your address, your bank information — immediately your alarm bells should go off,” said Salas. 

Some of those pieces of information are more dangerous to give out than others: not every survey that asks for your name is out to get you. But, Salas pointed out, usually if a pollster has ed you, they already know things like your name and your address.

“If we already sent you a survey text message, we already know who you are, we already have that data,” he said. “You were picked and you were part of that pool for a reason.”

There are some polls that use money as an incentive, but Salas says they shouldn’t be promising more than $10 or $15. 

“If you have someone offering you $100, $200, that’s a red flag off the bat,” he said.

A real poll text is also legally required to include an opt-out clause, like “text STOP to opt out.” Scam texts may not include this. 

And just because you don’t recognize the name of the organization texting you doesn’t mean it’s necessarily a scam — it may just be a campaign trying to get an unbiased read on potential voters by hiding its identity.

“A nebulous name may seem more nefarious, but at least it doesn’t spoil your results,” said Gourevitch. For example, his company GSG works with a phone bank to conduct their polls, so you’ll never get a text from the Global Strategy Group even if they’re the ones running a poll for a candidate. (Gourevitch is personally not working with any candidates in this election cycle, but GSG is working on city Comptroller Brad Lander’s mayoral campaign.) 

If you do get a scam, here’s what to do.

Once you’ve identified that your text might be a bit fishy, you can report it to the city Board of Elections and/or the Attorney General’s office. 

Last June before the presidential primaries, some people received texts with incorrect information about their polling place. To be safe, always check an official source for any voting information. You can find it on the state Board of Elections website here, and the city one here.

Public polls, message tests and canvassing

Depending on who’s conducting the poll, it will be searching for different information — and have differing goals.

Public polls, which are usually conducted by academic institutions sometimes in partnership with news organizations, are looking to speak to a representative sample of voters to make generalizations about a larger group. 

After the poll, they’ll publish their results. And they’ll always identify themselves, so you’ll know who you’re talking to, said Lee Miringoff, the senior director of the Marist Institute for Public Opinion.  

With polls conducted by campaigns, it’s harder to tell. 

“There’s a lot of campaigns right now for mayor, and no doubt some of them are doing campaign polls, and some of them are doing just solicitation in the guise of a poll,” Miringoff explained. 

An internal poll from a campaign is similar to a public poll, except the results likely won’t be published. They will instead be used to inform campaign strategy. Some of this could include message testing, where a candidate tries out different descriptions to see what will resonate with voters.

There are also some surveys that masquerade as polls, but are essentially just campaign materials delivered in poll form, giving you persuasive information about the candidate and potentially negative information about their competitors. 

If you get a survey that, at first, looks like a regular poll, but very quickly starts bombarding you with negative information about one candidate, that’s called a “push poll.”

For example, a reporter from THE CITY received a link to a survey earlier this year from Research-Polls that offered negative statements about City Council member and candidate for comptroller Justin Brannan, such as “Justin Brannan is a bully,” and positive statements about his opponent, Manhattan Borough President Mark Levine. The Levine campaign had no comment. 

“In New York City, which is very expensive to buy media, it’s a lot cheaper than buying TV time,” said Miringoff. “It’s a high-tech door-to-door canvas.”

“It is negative campaigning, and it’s like, ‘Hey, let me inform you about all the bad stuff this person has done,’” said Salas. “And you can tell who their candidate is going to be because they’re going to use favorable or neutral language.” 

According to Gourevitch, “push polls” fall into more of a canvassing category: They’re not trying to see how certain messaging or attributes play with a group of voters, they’re just trying to convince individuals of their candidate’s strengths. 

“You’re trying to reach as many people as possible — not in order to conduct a statistically representative poll of 600 people in a city of 8 million, but rather you’re just trying to reach as many people as possible in order to influence their opinions,” he explained. 

A certain amount of message testing from candidates is normal: they use polls to figure out their campaign strategy. But as the person taking the poll, the difference between a campaign that’s testing messaging for future ads, and what is essentially an ad in and of itself, is murky. 

“You’re never gonna see the results, and you don’t know whether you’re being polled or being solicited,” said Miringoff. 

Ultimately, whether or not you answer a poll is up to your own discretion. Neither public polls or information gatherers for campaigns are trying to scam you, so you can decide whether or not you want to give your opinions to whoever is on the end of the line — even if you don’t know who exactly it is.

“It’s fun and good to participate,” said Salas. (All the pollsters we’ve spoken to want people to answer polls.)“I’d encourage them, but watch out for the red flags,” he continued. 

And, to Salas, not every poll warrants your earnest opinions. “If it’s a push poll? Mess with it,” he said.