Meg has a J.D. in Urban, Land Use and Environmental Law. She focuses on political organizing, environmental policy, and sustainable living.

As many of you know, I (Meg) recently worked on a campaign where our strategy focused in large part of massive amounts of data. It’s incredible how much data can be collected over time and through various sources. So, to try my hand at “data collection,” I put together a poll last week asking you your opinion about what issue facing the country you think impacts you the most.

WordPress has many functions for its bloggers, from media integration, sharing ability to other sites, word clouds….there are quite a few features to use to tailor your blog. I had never used the poll feature before, so I decided to try it.

To create a poll: Go to Dashboard. Click on “Feedbacks” on the left-hand side. Then click on “polls.” From here, you can both create a new poll, edit existing polls, and check results from existing polls.

To adjust poll settings: Go to Dashboard. Click on “Settings,” and then click on “polls.” This allows you to adjust the general settings of your polls, including the style, format for displaying results, and how the answer choices are arranged.

Results from our poll on Issues: “What issue do you feel impacts you the most?”

Answer choices: Sequestration, Gun Control, Climate Change, Immigration, Women’s Rights, and Education.

Top answers: Sequestration and Women’s Rights

I thought this was interesting, because I was under the impression many of our readers would be focused on issues like Education and Climate Change. However, I am also encouraged by the responses, because it suggests our readers are very attuned to the most pressing issues currently being addressed in Washington.

“What is your professional association?”

Answer Choices: Business, Healthcare, Law, Labor, Student, Artist, Other

Top answers: Business and Healthcare

We will be sure to use the poll feature again in the future, and hopefully we will have an even better response next time. Again, our poll results only show us the responses, and not the person giving the response, so you can be sure we will not share your name with your answer. And, if you have any polls you’d like us to do, please let us know!