While discussing the results of an unscientific online poll on his August 2 radio show, Newsradio 850 KOA host “Gunny” Bob Newman revealed that 84 percent of those who voted disagreed with his idea of putting illegal immigrants on chain gangs for five years. As Colorado Media Matters noted, Newman said on his August 1 show: “We can do things like announcing to other nations that if you come to Colorado and our police catch you here illegally, we're going to put you on a chain gang. And you're going to work for five years on our state chain gang, doing public work projects, and you're not going to like it there. It sounds extreme, but it could be a lot more extreme, now couldn't it?” Newman added: “There are going to be a lot of people who don't like my idea of a chain gang for illegal aliens.”

Commenting on the poll, Newman said on August 2 the results were “interesting” because “when I looked at these results, I said, wait a minute, I wonder what they mean by most of them answering no.” Later, he asked, "[D]oes that mean they [voters in the poll] think the sentence is too light?"

From the August 2 broadcast of Newsradio 850 KOA's The Gunny Bob Show:

NEWMAN: Now, yesterday's poll question, then we'll go back to the phones on open-mike night. I'm Gunny Bob on 850 KOA. Should illegal aliens captured in America be sentenced to five years on a chain gang doing public work projects? Only 16 percent of you said yes, 84 percent said no, and it was a huge vote last night. Which is interesting, because now of that 84 percent who said no, shouldn't do five years on a chain gang, I don't know whether you wanted more years, less years, or no years. So we're going to have to figure that out. When I looked at these results, I said, wait a minute, I wonder what they mean by most of them answering no. Maybe I should have phrased that a little differently -- we'll try it again later.

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NEWMAN: Yesterday's poll question, should illegal aliens captured in America be sentenced to five years on a chain gang? Sixteen percent of you said yes, 84 percent said no. And I was thinking, OK, now, does that 84 percent, does that mean they think the sentence is too light?