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Are Polls a Sham?

Discussion in 'Alley of Dangerous Angles' started by Aldeth the Foppish Idiot, Sep 17, 2004.

  1. Aldeth the Foppish Idiot

    Aldeth the Foppish Idiot Armed with My Mallet O' Thinking Veteran

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    According to this article, all the polling you see regarding the U.S. Presidential Election, may not be worth a hill of beans.

    According to the article, national pollsters do not have cell phone lists, of which there are 169 million in the U.S. Moreover, among younger voters, many have a cell phone, but not a traditional land line. So there people are never represented in the poll numbers.

    Add in another 5 million Americans currently overseas, and you have to wonder if the polls really are a representative sample of the population.

    Read the whole article: here
     
    Aldeth the Foppish Idiot, Sep 17, 2004
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  2. Blackthorne TA

    Blackthorne TA Master in his Own Mind Staff Member ★ SPS Account Holder Adored Veteran Pillars of Eternity SP Immortalizer (for helping immortalize Sorcerer's Place in the game!) New Server Contributor [2012] (for helping Sorcerer's Place lease a new, more powerful server!) Torment: Tides of Numenera SP Immortalizer (for helping immortalize Sorcerer's Place in the game!)

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    Of course they are. The same way statistics in general are.

    In my opinion, someone pays for a poll or for data gathering in general because they want to show backup data to support their position, not because they want an unbiased indicator.
     
    Blackthorne TA, Sep 17, 2004
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  3. Splunge

    Splunge Bhaal’s financial advisor Adored Veteran Pillars of Eternity SP Immortalizer (for helping immortalize Sorcerer's Place in the game!) Torment: Tides of Numenera SP Immortalizer (for helping immortalize Sorcerer's Place in the game!)

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    Aldeth, you should have made this a poll. :p

    Basically, for a poll to be statistically valid, everyone must have an equal chance of being selected. So with so many exclusions re telephones, the validity is weakened. Not to mention the fact that the answer given can be influenced by the way in which the question is asked.
     
    Splunge, Sep 17, 2004
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  4. Bion Gems: 21/31
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    very amusing, Inspector Splunge!

    I agree that there will be alot of gaming of the polls this election; I'm sure there are plenty of Repub strategests hoping that the post-SBV Bush spike in the polls will make lots of people think that, gee, even if the SBV are more full of holes than Swiss cheese, there must be *something* in their story if so many people have bought it. And remember the network/cable dispute over exit polling results during the 2000 elections, and how that affected the outcome of the election...
     
    Bion, Sep 17, 2004
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  5. Blue Loon Gems: 4/31
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    If you read the entire article you will realize it is actually about a Pro-Kerry person trying to make excuses about why the polls point toward bush.

    If this was really meant to mean anything it would include some other information like the number of home telephones in the US. I'm sure this number is much greater than the amount of cell phone numbers. Or, if you consider that most people that own cell phones also have a home phone; this article turns to foolishness.
     
    Blue Loon, Sep 17, 2004
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  6. teekc Gems: 23/31
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    In my psychology class back in Malaysia, my lecturer told me a story about poll in u.s. happened during presidental election. (this was sometime ago and my memory is blur)

    It was Kennedy (not sure, might be nixon or truman as well), the story was they ran several polls troughout the period some guy had much highier rating than Kennedy. But as we all know, Kennedy was the presudent, and some guy remained some guy. Those people used telephones as their sampling. Using this method, the restricted their survey in a small social class. The moral of the story was not everyone who votes in the 60's has a telephone.
     
    teekc, Sep 17, 2004
    #6
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