Note that I want actual poll to appear in my blog, rather than providing a link to the poll which forwards it to some polling website.

The bad news is that right now, Wordpress.com doesn't support polls. Even polls that you could embed in your site usually involve code (such as Javascript) that Wordpress.com doesn't allow.

The only option we in the Wordpress.com community know of so far is using an HTML text poll from Luckypolls. Here's what it would look like:

http://changingway.org/2007/05/22/poll-w...

Here's the site you'd get it from: http://luckypolls.com/

Keep in mind that Luckypolls tends to be crappy - if you don't leave your name, the vote may not register, and most people don't leave a name.

So for now, this feature simply doesn't exist. I feel your pain...I'm waiting for it too.

Sorry. :(

Best of luck with your blog!

WP has plugins for this. I found 2:

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-p...

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/powp...

Installation guide should be provided there.

If it's not enough, google "Wordpress poll".

Have you considered using different wordpress hosting sites?

It's simple to export your database and to move over to some other wordpress host that offers polling features.

Take a look at http://www.isblogged.com or similar and see if they offer polls.