What's wrong with this picture?

[warrior1]

Yea, rightttt. California. I don't believe that for one minute. But sure does piss me off. Anyone know anything about the site listed that this information comes from "Survey USA."? Not the site I got the picture from.

http://www.electoral-vote.com/

The votemaster didn't believe it either.

A very strange Survey USA poll puts Bush within 3% of Kerry in California, 49% to 46%. I don't believe that for a second. Remember that polls are always reported with a margin of error (MoE). For state polls, it is nearly always 3.5% to 4%, so we don't report it. What this means is that if you repeat the poll over and over, 95% of the time the difference between the true (unknown) mean and the measured mean will be no more than the MoE. A consequence of this is that 5% of the time, the measured mean will be off by more than the MoE. I don't know if this is the case here, but the data are very suspect. There is no reason to think Survey USA is cheating here. This may just be a statistical outlier.

If anything I would have thought that Kerry's carrying CA, with about 55 to 60 percent of registered voters. The Survey USA group only poll a little over 500 of 'likely' voters.

ugh...

[noahmijo]

1. I've seen this before it's been highly freeped

I remember seeing it when Arizona was a heavy red state.

Oregon and Cali will be clear blue states, and Az will be a blue state by a small margin in the end.

[calico1]

3. So survey USA is an online poll?

[SaveElmer]

2. Survey USA uses automated polling

In their calls...those being surveyed do not actually talk to a live person. Consequently their results are usually waaay off.

[calico1]

4. Oops, I shouls have waited a few seconds!

I don't think those automated polls are very accurate either.

[yellowcanine]

6. Not only that but I believe it was also a very small sample of about 500.

Rasmussen also uses automated polling bet he seems to have improved his reliability a bit (as measured by conformance with other polls) since 2000.

[sleipnir]

5. It's the GOP plan, friend, to put California into play.

That has been their goal all along. Force the Dems to spend in California, a consistent Dem pick-up, that would drain the war chest to have to run ads in such a populous and large area.

I do believe that California is a lot closer than we want to believe. It really is the 900 pound gorilla in the corner for the Dems this year.

The state elected Arnold, why should we be surprised when the state is no longer solid blue? I don't think it will go to Bush, but I do believe the Dems are going to have to put some cash into California to shore it up.

Many site the recent Census reports that had more people moving into California from traditional Red states. In the past, most of Cali's new citizens where from the Northeast, looking to escape the horrific winters. This could explain the shift towards to the GOP that is happening in California right now.

[tandot]

7. Freepers actually think that they can change the destiny of Bush by

freeping an online poll.

Sorry, brainless morons: I hope Laura is already busy packing their stuff and have the White House cleaned real good before the Kerrys move in.

[pacalo]

8. This is another reason I don't put much stock into polls.

[beyurslf]

9. This is a gewat site though. And he supports Kerry.

I think he is pretty fair in his set up though. He always uses the most recent results.... even if he thinks it is wrong, such as this one.

[olddem43]

10. There isn't a damn thing wrong. with this picture -

I certainly hope that it ends up this way. Kerry 301 EV, Bush 213.
even if Bush gets all the "tied" states, Kerry still wins big. I'll take it just the way it is.