Sorry Rick, here's the history.
I've had polls before but found that after a short period of time, they tend to degrade from the important/serious to much silliness. When I switched to this software, I though I'd turned them off completely for everyone but me. Turns out, as you found out, that everyone had access to them. I spent a bit of time figuring out why you had access, found the setting, and turned it off for everyone but admins and Global Moderators. I've been debating about turning it on again for Senior Members, as they have generally been on boad for a long time, know what's been "polled" before and know who to keep the tool from becoming a free-for-all. On the other hand, we have also seen a few members join up and then post tons of messages just to get their status levels up as high as possible.
I'm leaning towards a policy whereby Moderators, GMs and admins can post polls. If anyone else wants one, they can contact anyone on the team and we can construct a viable poll. What you've done so far is excellent, and I'm not worried about that, I'm just worried about what comes down the road if we don't have good policies and procedures.
This is a good a post to lead the discussion. What are everyones thoughts on polls and how we should manage them?