Digital pollsters have to deal with bogus responses from people who are just taking the survey to obtain a reward. As a result, surveys rely on different techniques such as trap questions, automated prescreening and voter file matching. Trap questions are clever, even if they’re not foolproof; Pew Research Center demonstrated their efficacy by asking, for instance, if respondents used any of six different social media platforms, “Fizzypress” among them, which does not exist but nevertheless six percent of respondents claimed they had. Respondents were asked if they had received any of six government benefits in 2023, one of which — payments from the United States Railroad Administration, claimed by nine percent of respondents — has not existed since 1920. Another 10 percent said they had visited the International Space Station, and eight percent had served on a Polar-class icebreaker ship, of which only two were ever built.
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