A new poll on Seattle’s Referendum 1, the proposed 20-cent tax on disposable shopping bags, is both more revealing and more misleading than previous polls. The misleading part is inadvertent: Local insurer Pemco ("We’re like you. A little different.") sponsored a poll asking 283 residents of King, Pierce, and Snohomish Counties how they “feel” about such a bag tax (not whether they think it’s a good idea). (See results.) Seventy-one percent said they oppose it, 57 percent of them “strongly”; only 24 percent supported it. That’s more opposition than previous polls conducted only in Seattle have shown. One found 46 percent opposed and 47 percent in favor; the most recent found that ratio had switched to 51 percent nay, 42 yea.

But what most of Pemco’s respondents think is irrelevant to the tax’s fate; they don’t live in Seattle, the only place it’s on the ballot. They’re only included to fill out a statistical quorum. Pemco regularly polls residents statewide, 600 of them at a time, on questions pertinent to its insurance business—cell-phoning while driving, who should go first at four-way stops, etc. This time, for the first time, it also asked about an unrelated hot-button subject. As Pemco spokesman Jon Osterberg explains, it deleted responses from most of the state; what do folks in Walla Walla know or care about Seattle’s bag tax? But it kept responses from across the three counties in order have a large enough sample—283—to be statistically valid. Pemco justifies that decision on grounds those residents are exposed to Seattle media and so probably know something about the bag tax—even if their views won’t affect the referendum.

Problematic though its sampling strategy is, Pemco did disclose it. Its press release clearly notes that respondents were drawn from across the three counties, though its website refers to them as "Seattle-area residents." That didn’t stop the Puget Sound Business Journal from misreporting, under the dire headline “Pemco poll: Seattle bag tax is doomed,” that “More than 70 percent of Seattle residents oppose a proposed 20-cent tax on grocery bags….”

Given that wide net, and the fact that folks almost everywhere else dislike taxes and environmental regulation more than Seattleites do, it’s no surprise 71 percent declared themselves opposed. But other responses Pemco received are more notable—and more encouraging for those who want to reduce the use of disposable bags. A whopping 69 percent across the three counties said they’d be “very likely” to bring their own reusable bags if they had to pay 20 cents for disposables, and another 19 percent said they’d be “somewhat likely” to. In other words, a bag tax wouldn’t be popular, at least initially, but it would be highly effective.

An alternative measure, a 1 percent discount for using reusable bags, would also be effective—62 percent “very likely” and 25 percent “highly likely” to comply—but not quite so effective as the tax. And it would depend on the kindness of grocers.

I can’t say which, if either, is the best approach. But do you know why cloth bags are more convenient and fun than paper or plastic ones—and why they help boost exercise and battle obesity? That’s for another post.