Our local newspaper’s online edition now has a feature called “Today’s Polls.”  (Your local paper probably has something similar.)  The question that the Asheville Citizen-Times has posed to its click-happy surfers today:

“Do you think parents should be able to claim a child tax exemption if even if [sic] their children register to vote on a college campus?”

With 25 votes tallied so far, 16 (64%) have said yes and 9 (36%) have said no.  The final result will not be known until the wee hours of the morning when the Ohio precincts are finally counted.  So stay tuned.

Three comments on this poll.  First, the poll question was obviously worded to inflame those who read it too quickly.  Tax exemption?  Absolutely not!  Not for people who don’t even live here!   Let the liberal college kids go home if they want to vote!

Second, one must ask (and I must ask), what does the first part of the question have to do with the second part?  The poll may as well have asked: Should parents be able to claim tax exemptions for children who (a) believe that people of the same sex can marry, or (b) think that ownership of semi-automatic weapons should be regulated, or (c) like to go to Florida for Spring Break?  When you put it this way, I don’t think so.  Or do I?

Third and finally, the poll question itself is misstated.  There is no “child tax exemption” per se.  There is a child tax credit for middle-income taxpayers with children under 17 years of age, but voting-age children are ineligible for it.  Then there are exemptions for dependents, those people related to you who meet certain age, residency and support requirements.  The residency test requires a dependent to have lived with you more than half the year, not counting absences for illness, education, vacation, or military service.  Maybe the question could have been phrased, “Should your child no longer be considered to be living with you for tax purposes if he or she registers to vote in another district?”  But that would call for too much deliberation by the typical online newspaper reader.  And it would raise messy questions like, should you be able to claim your son or daughter as a dependent if he or she registers to vote while serving in Afghanistan?

These polls are not intended to be thought-provoking or informative.  They are simply a way for websites to gauge the demographics of their readers, the better to sell advertising.  The only thing the poll needs to do is elicit a brief emotional response in the reader that produces a click of the mouse on Yes or No.  So what do you think?

• I AGREE
• I DISAGREE
• I DON’T CARE
• I DON’T KNOW
• I DON’T EVEN WANT TO KNOW