PATMON TO CHANNEL 3: WHERE'S MY NAME? I got an email from Andy Juniewicz of the Patmon for Mayor campaign with a letter to Channel 3 attached. The letter asks a very good question: Why wasn't Bill Patmon's name included in the choices offered to voters in the station's mayoral preference poll released yesterday?

Here's the question that SurveyUSA, WKYC's pollster, asked their sample of voters:

On October 4th, Cleveland will have a Primary for Mayor. If the Primary for Mayor of Cleveland were today, and you were standing in the voting booth right now, who would you vote for? Jane Campbell? James Draper? Frank Jackson? David Lynch? Robert Triozzi? Or some other candidate?

That's five named choices. But voters will see eight candidates on the ballot on October 4. Among the eight are four who have ever won an election in the city: Campbell, Jackson, Triozzi.. and Patmon, who served four terms as Glenville's City Councilman. David Lynch, who's lived in Cleveland for less than a year, has absolutely no electoral track record here.

So why was Lynch on the list of "serious" choices offered by the poll, but not Patmon?

From Patmon's letter to WKYC General Manager Brooke Spectorsky and Managing Editor Dick Russ (not yet posted on his campaign website, though I'm sure it will be soon):

1.) By the very nature and substance of the question(s) you asked of “likely registered voters” in this most recent poll, you consciously and deliberately misrepresented to those voters who their choices actually are. In effect, you misled and misinformed those whom you surveyed.

2.) Well publicized polls can and do affect voters’ perceptions and attitudes, and, as such, can affect the outcome of an election. I have every expectation that your poll results will be reported widely on your own broadcast station, on the various cable television systems that also carry your station, and on your station’s own Internet web site. That same information will also be available to every person who chooses to access it on the Internet. The potential audience that will be impacted by your actions cannot, at this time, be reasonably calculated or estimated.

3.) It remains to be seen whether the inherent bias and flaws in your methodology will be given adequate and appropriate weight when the results of the poll are publicly reported beginning this evening.

The answer to the last question is no. WKYC's reporting on the poll last night did not mention the omission of Patmon or his complaint about it, which was sent to the station's managers yesterday afternoon.