Your Definitive Guide to Understanding
Polling (and Why Most Polls Are Garbage)
Red State,
by
Scott Hounsell
Original Article
Posted By: StormCnter,
9/8/2020 2:40:18 PM
On September 1, 2020, The Economist/YouGov released a National Presidential “Poll” [Quotes Added] in which they declare Joe Biden has a monstrous 11 point lead on Donald Trump. As a polling nerd, I decided to take a deeper look at it.
In order to analyze the data, we must first identify what we are looking at here. First, is what polling firms call “topline” or the data that is presented to you as the consumer. The topline data is the direct answers to the questions for the poll. We ask 100 people, for “who are they voting?”
Read this early this morning. Very informative. I always thought polling could show one anything one wanted. This proves it.
The only poll that counts is on November 3, and now that the left is messing with minds by declaring it won't be that date, who knows?!
15 people like this.
Reply 2 - Posted by:
MMC 9/8/2020 2:52:34 PM (No. 534962)
Vote- in person.
13 people like this.
Reply 3 - Posted by:
red1066 9/8/2020 3:18:38 PM (No. 534971)
Read an article that stated democrats are asking for mail in ballots in huge numbers compared to Republicans. I guess this means the results of Nov. 3rd won't be accepted by the Marxists. They'll claim all the votes weren't counted yet, and they'll try to string the results of the election out for as long as they can. The MSM including Fox is all in with polls. Every pundit is assuming Trump is behind based on the poll numbers. Any pundit that appears anywhere on the MSM or Fox and makes statements based on polls is either a liar, or and idiot. Rove is one of the worst. I can't remember if he's ever been right about anything.
11 people like this.
Reply 4 - Posted by:
AmericaYes 9/8/2020 3:40:05 PM (No. 534992)
Only poll worth considering is Rasmussen.
Good rule of thumb is if a poll samples less than 1000 individuals and/ or has a margin of error greater than +/- 3%, it's useless.
8 people like this.
Reply 5 - Posted by:
mathman 9/8/2020 3:42:59 PM (No. 534995)
Dear Readers:
A poll is a statistical sample. In sampling theory, one begins with a large pool of items to be sampled. Then one RANDOMLY selects the sample, and all of those who have been selected have their data collected. If the participants are randomly selected, the math is pretty good in determining the accuracy of the sample as a measure of the population. The accuracy varies as the reciprocal of the square root of the sample size.
If the participants are not randomly selected, there is no math to guarantee any accuracy at all.
The difficulty with the polls is that those who do not respond are not counted. The non-respondents diminish the accuracy of the poll, quite considerably in fact. When you have 6% or 7% responding, you have garbage.
So forget about the polls.
5 people like this.
Reply 6 - Posted by:
rikkitikki 9/8/2020 4:01:54 PM (No. 535016)
If a poll is conducted over land-line telephones, then how can those without a land-line be represented by the poll? I personally do not know anyone under the age of 50 who still has a land-line telephone.
6 people like this.
Reply 7 - Posted by:
MickTurn 9/8/2020 4:12:25 PM (No. 535024)
Biden hasn't got a snowballs chance in Hell of getting elected.
9 people like this.
Reply 8 - Posted by:
jjs 9/8/2020 5:32:47 PM (No. 535069)
I haven't got any poll calls in a while, I must have 10 or so blocked. I also have most off DC blocked. 202-xxx Wide protect works good for blocking area codes and first 3 digits.
1 person likes this.
Reply 9 - Posted by:
smokincol 9/8/2020 6:55:03 PM (No. 535100)
most polls are fabricated, constructed or skewed, among other ways to alter numbers, ie: statistics. not one of these polling services have called me so, I do not value their statistics.
1 person likes this.
Reply 10 - Posted by:
BeatleJeff 9/8/2020 7:44:26 PM (No. 535120)
Nothing that those of us who follow these kinds of things didn't already know. Earlier tonight, I was watching Bret Baier bandy about a poll showing Florida dead even. I thought, yeah right! If they're showing it even, you can rest assured that Trump is well ahead thanks to their perpetual oversampling of libtards.
3 people like this.
Reply 11 - Posted by:
JimBob 9/9/2020 12:09:52 AM (No. 535258)
First, I want to thank Mr. Hounsell for writing the article. I learned a few things.
Second, I want to raise the issue of 'randomness'.
In today's world of Big Data, everything you buy with a credit card is tracked. What stores you shop at, what you buy, how often, how much, where you live, where you travel, what kind of vehicle (Dodge Dually Diesel or Toyota Prius).Your cell 'phone is tracked, your travels can be reconstructed from you cell phone location. Where you go online....Lucianne or CNN, Citizens Free Press or MSNBC....is also in the algorithm. Your political contributions are of course in the public database.
Knowing where you go, where you live, where you shop and what you buy, these companies can figure out pretty easily who you are going to vote for, and how you would vote on any election issue.
Having this knowledge, it is of course child's play to set up pools of voters..... a Leftist pool, a Conservative pool, a Build the Wall pool, a Defund the Police' pool, etc.
The next step, for an unscrupulous pollster, is to 'randomly sample' from each known pool in the percentages needed to give a desired result.
Say the Biden campaign wants to advertise a 'randomly selected' pool showing Biden ahead by 5 points...... or 25 points,,,,, or 50 points.
Call up the pollster, tell 'em what you want, and the pollster delivers.
"A random sample of American Adults indicates that blah-blah-blah percent are going to vote for Biden."
"A random sample of American Adults favor abortion up to the moment of birth."
"A random sample of American Adults favor Whitey paying Reparations to Blacks."
..... any question, any desired result, and Polling Inc.... WILL deliver the desired numbers!
Yep. Randomly selected from pools of people in the percentages needed to give the desired result.
That the 'Rats would do this if it helped push their Narrative is about a likely as water running downhill.
1 person likes this.
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