bullshit polls

[ButterflyBlood]

I've been doing a lot of research on polling companies' reputations, and looked up what a couple non-partisan poll experts think.

in a nutshell, any poll from the following is total garbage, and should be taken with a grain of salt, if even that:

LA Times
Time
Newsweek
online Zogby ones
any poll from a university except Quinnipiac

[johan helge]

1. Do you know which polls are the best?

[ButterflyBlood]

3. well according to one non-partisan expert I know:

Mason-Dixon's the best for state polls.

Gallup is good, but the methodology is designed to predict the result very close to the election, so far from the election it's not too reliable.

and believe it or not, most partisan polling firms like Public Opinion Strategies and Strategic Vision for the Repukes and Hart Research and Lake, Snell, Perry and Associates for us tend to be some of the best. That's because they do polls for candidate clients and thus have a real motive to be accurate, rather than simply make a news story. most people accuse polls from partisan firms of being utter crap, but actually the best firms on both sides often have similar results.

for example, I live in Minnesota. A couple weeks ago the Democratic firm Hart Research did a poll here showing Kerry up by 3. 3 days later, the Repuke Strategic Vision got the same result.

[newyawker99]

5. Hi johan helge!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[depakid]

2. Media polls in particular tend to be invalid

because they're done on the cheap and tend to be agenda driven.

Sometimes, their sample is so skewed or biased, that they produce wildly innacurate numbers, such as the supposed 11 and 13 point leads for Bush. No one with any real knowledge of politics or polling took those seriously.

But, no matter how many times we post information about how their methodology works and what they may or may not be useful for (e.g., collectively suggesting trends over time) people are going to freak out over them. It's human nature, I guess- that garner precisely the kind of emotional reaction that the media is looking for. Heck, tht's why they do them- to help sell newspapers and advertisements. It's not a public service!

To me, media polls are like the pornography of politics- and having been at DU a long time, I guarantee you that a sizable number of people here have poll fetishes who should know better.

Internals are another matter. Campaigns spend TONS of money trying to get those right, ans as a result, they present a much better snapshot of reality- but of course, people outside positions of authority in the campaigns don't have access to them.

[miss_kitty]

4. any online poll is BS

because there are no controls-they'll often be referred to as 'non-scientific'

controls can include age, income, gender.
online polls will take a click from anyone. and many times. you only need more than 1 browser, and/or to clean cookies files and history from your browser(s) to vote multiple times

telephone polls in which a pollee is contacted by a poller (not "phone this # for 'a'; this # for 'b'...") are probably the most controlled widely-used polls...they only call your number once, make sure you are of a certain profile (voting age, say) then ask their questions. however, the questions can be skewed a little or a lot, the poller might coach you (eg-you are given an 'undecided' option along with 'Smith' and 'Jones' as candidates. you say "undecided". the poller may then be instructed to say "but if the election were held tomorrow...?" to get a 'Smith' or 'Jones' answer from you).

then there is the veracity of the pollee. example: "are you of legal voting age in the USA?" 16 year old: "yes."

i don't like polls except the ones with voting booths.