« Longest E-Mail Address In The World | Main | Promptergate - The Story That Refuses To Die »
October 10, 2004
Why Polls Don't Matter
We ran across an interesting piece over at the left coaster concerning the Gallup poll's consistent undersampling of Democratic voters in it's national and state polls. It seems that Gallup has consistently weighted their polls with the assumption that approximately 40% of those people turning out to vote this November will be Republican, while only 33% will be Democrat. This goes a long way toward explaining why the results of different polls have been so inconsistent this season. It also points up the inherent problem with polling; that is, polls are always based on a certain set of statistical assumptions that are essentially educated(?) guesses and may or may not be correct. It also logically follows that a pollster can manipulate the outcome of any given poll simply by weighting the initial assumptions on which that poll is based. In short, don't believe the hype. Make a difference this November and get out and vote.
Posted by bcoffee at October 10, 2004 05:54 PM
Trackback Pings
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.icantthink.com/cgi-bin/mt-tb.cgi/49
