Lockdown polls on Twitter
Updated: 16 April 2023
When New Zealand went into a Level 4 lockdown late in March 2020, I took to Twitter and created a “World Cup” of pie flavours where people could vote for their favourites and there would be an eventual winner. I had the idea some time earlier when I was in Patrick’s Pies and saw their vast range of pie flavours. (image at the end of this article).
The poll pitted the 31 pie flavours and a sausage roll against each other in a knockout format, the winner of each tie decided by the people of Twitter until a winner was found. Within a few hours of the first round going live, it had gone crazy and the votes (and comments) were pouring in.
The poll ran for a few days and eventually “Steak & Cheese” was declared the winner - after 28,076 votes were cast. With most people locked down, there was a huge appetite for some light relief so of course I was asked what my next poll would be about. It was ice cream flavours - 2 litre tubs only.
This one was even bigger resulting in 2000+ votes on the hotly contested Hokey Pokey v Boysenberry Ripple semi-final and almost 45,000 votes in total. Meanwhile my total of Twitter followers went up very fast from around 600 - I had been on Twitter around a decade by that point - and by the end of lockdown I was over 2,000 followers.
I appeared on TV1 Breakfast for an interview with John Campbell (who was later to feature as the winner of a poll) and also on Radio New Zealand.
I continued the polls until we came out of Level 4 a month later - 9 polls in all culminating in NZ’s favourite takeaway concluding the day before takeaways opened up again to the public. I continued with the polls whenever the country (or part of it) went into lockdown. The poll on worst NZ town slogan featured on The Project on TV3.
Since restrictions were lightened and then lifted, polls have taken place from time to time.
Twitter recently announced that only verified users will be able to vote in polls - verified means paying for Twitter and so I will be running no more Twitter polls in the future if this change is made.
Results of all polls are shown below - total of votes after 32 polls is 1,011,196.
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This was a champion of champions poll of previous top 4 contenders in the food polls.
44,830 votes
Winner: Steak & Cheese Pie 53.3% v Sausage Roll
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42,058 votes
Winner: Hutt Valley (Right up my Hutt Valley) 75.4% v Tuatepere (NZ’s Sausage Capital)
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This was a poll that ran on a single day - Vaxathon Day in NZ.
23,310 votes
Winner: John Campbell 50.9% v Hilary Barry
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14,685 votes
Winner: Grandma got run over by a reindeer 52.5% v Please, Daddy (Don't Get Drunk on Christmas)
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