Is there an optimal position for user polls on a website?

I am in the process of designing a sports website. Users will visit to check the scores and fixtures of their team for various sports.

On the home page I am thinking of putting a user poll, just to engage with the community. At the moment I have a side bar on the right with some of the latest scores, for users' convenience. I have put the user poll as a widget below this section as it has less importance on my sports website.

Ideally, does a user poll have to be at the top of the page or does it mainly depend on the significance of the poll?

Is there any research that states that polls at the top of the page gets more votes than ones at the bottom or middle of the page?