366
Opinion of the Court
preference should logically produce a more rigorous standard for polling. 83 F. 3d, at 1487. But there are other reasons why the standard for polling ought to be less rigorous than the standard for Board elections. For one thing, the consequences of an election are more severe: If the union loses an employer poll it can still request a Board election, but if the union loses a formal election it is barred from seeking another for a year. See 29 U. S. C. § 159(c)(3). If it would be rational for the Board to set the polling standard either higher or lower than the threshold for an RM election, then surely it is not irrational for the Board to split the difference.
III
The Board held Allentown guilty of an unfair labor practice in its conduct of the polling because it "ha[d] not demonstrated that it held a reasonable doubt, based on objective considerations, that the Union continued to enjoy the support of a majority of the bargaining unit employees." 316 N. L. R. B., at 1199. We must decide whether that conclusion is supported by substantial evidence on the record as a whole. Fall River Dyeing, supra, at 42; Universal Camera Corp. v. NLRB, 340 U. S. 474 (1951).1 Put differently, we must decide whether on this record it would have been pos-1 Justice Breyer's opinion asserts that this issue is not included within the question presented by the petition. Post, at 388 (opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part). The question reads: "Whether the National Labor Relations Board erred in holding that a successor employer cannot conduct a poll to determine whether a majority of its employees support a union unless it already has obtained so much evidence of no majority support as to render the poll meaningless." Pet. for Cert. i. The phrase "so much . . . as to render the poll meaningless" is of course conclusory and argumentative. Fairly read, the question asks whether the Board erred by requiring too much evidence of majority support. That question can be answered in the affirmative if either (1) the Board's polling standard is irrational or inconsistent with the Act, or (2) the Board erroneously found that the evidence in this case was insufficient to meet that standard.
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