Polls me ... polls me not

Best of the Web mentions a biased poll question:

I'm going to read two statements. Which of the following approaches do you think makes the most sense for New York in deciding whether or not to open up the state to fracking for shale/natural gas? Here’s the first statement: New York should wait for all the necessary health and environmental studies to be completed first before opening the state to fracking. Here’s the second statement: New York should move ahead now before the studies are completed to allow fracking in all or some of the state.

For this to be a valid question, the first statement should have read: New York should wait for all the health and environmental studies requested by the opponents of fracking before allowing it anywhere in the state.

By definition, all unnecessary studies should not have been initiated in the first place.

In the grand scheme of things, this might sound like a trivial excuse for a blog post, but it is very important to pay attention to what's in a poll, especially with what we are going to be subjected to until election day.

This question, extremely biased to produce a result against fracking, is good reminder that how poll questions are formulated matters just as much as who's asked.