PORTLAND, Maine - A Portland polling company has retracted a portion of its election survey released today. The Pan Atlantic SMS has pulled the part of the poll that deals with this year's proposed ban on several bear-hunting methods after it posed an outdated question to respondents.
Patrick Murphy, president of Pan Atlantic SMS, says he pulled the information gained through the poll after learning that the survey quoted a 2004 referendum question that criminalized hunting bear by traps, bait or dogs.
He said the poll failed to use the question that will be before the voters next week. That measure proposes a ban on those same hunting practices.
Katie Hansberry, director for the Yes on 1 campaign, which supports the ban, says Murphy's poll indicated majority opposition to the ban - a position she says is contrary to what she's seeing on the ground.
"We're out talking to people every day and making phone calls, and we absolutely can feel the momentum and believe that Maine voters want to ban the un-sporting practices of bear baiting, hounding and trapping," Hansberry says.
Murphy said his company used the older question in other surveys before the wording of Question 1 had been finalized.