A farmers' producer company put a question in its monthly bulletin and on its notice board asking members whether the company should set up a turmeric boiling and polishing unit. Of the 260 members who answered, 71 in every hundred said it should, and the board concludes that most of the company's 2,400 members want the unit. Which of the following, if true, most weakens the board's conclusion?

The 260 are not a slice of the membership but the members with a stake in the answer, and the option names the stake: the unit would serve their crop and no other. A body of respondents assembled by their own interest in the proposal will of course approve it, and their approval carries no weight for the maize and cotton growers who never troubled to reply. The cost of the unit bears on whether it should be built even if wanted — a separate question the board must also answer. That the bulletin reaches every house strengthens the board rather than weakening it, since it removes the excuse that members never saw the question and leaves their silence a choice. The company's age and its intake of members describe its history and bear on neither the 260 nor the 2,400.