Tahlequah committee refines survey plan, opts for verified Polco rollout and QR outreach

The Tahlequah committee drafting a public survey on a proposed sales-tax measure met and reported progress on survey design, use of the Polco platform, and plans to collect verified responses at community events.

The committee said it has divided proposed survey topics into four categories — “quality of life, safety, infrastructure, and sports and leisure” — and will include demographic questions up front and tax-specific questions at the end. The group plans follow-up surveys and wants the initial instrument to identify whether respondents live within Tahlequah city limits and whether they are registered voters.

Committee members told the meeting they met with a Polco representative for onboarding and have added several users to the Polco workspace so multiple committee members can collaborate on the same draft. The platform offers two distribution modes: an open survey anyone can take and a verified survey that requires registration and permits confirmation of voter status. The committee discussed tradeoffs and several members argued that verifying respondents will produce more actionable data for a ballot measure because it identifies likely voters.

The group discussed a short-term outreach plan tied to upcoming local events. Student volunteers built a QR code for the survey, and the committee plans a small printed flyer with that code to hand out at the Crawfish Festival; one member said the committee will discard responses from non-residents in the verification step if necessary. Committee members also proposed a pre-registration QR code so residents can sign up to be notified when the survey launches.

On data hygiene, members asked how Polco prevents repeat submissions. Committee staff said the platform can restrict multiple responses either by using unique link tokens or by requiring account registration. The committee also discussed collecting emails on the first survey to enable targeted follow-up and to limit respondents taking the survey multiple times.

Next steps: committee members will meet with a staff member named Karen to further refine questions and decide whether to require verified registration. They said the survey likely will not be ready in time for some events that attract many out-of-town visitors but could be ready for more locally attended events. The group also plans to use internal email lists and utility-billing or customer-notification channels as additional distribution options once they finalize the registration approach.

The committee scheduled additional work sessions to finalize the draft before broad distribution and to create short printed cards with the QR code and the finalized tagline for outreach.