I have read numerous articles recently that have shown how low the average citizens' knowledge of government is (i.e., only 50% of citizens can name all 3 branches of government...). For my thesis on the initiative process, I uncovered an article arguing that these statistics are often inflated, and make the average citizen look bad, because: 1) the surveys do not offer incentives for getting the correct answer (while voting arguably does), and 2) surveys often leave little time for contemplation, research, etc., (unlike voting). By accounting for these two elements (through a monetary incentive and more time), those who did the survey answer in much higher percentages (increases ranging from 11-40%).
Check it out if this topic interests you. Just another example of statistics that are often misleading or wrong.
http://www-personal.umich.edu/~lupia/Papers/Prior_Lupia_AJPS_2008.pdf
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