Why Polls are Bulls**t
By amba | Related entries in Elections, PollsWe know that — and we’re addicted to them anyway — but in a fine piece of election-eve wisdom (which I wanted to link to last night), Twin Cities political commentator Barry Casselman dispenses warnings to both parties not to count voters before they’ve voted, and provides one of the best eviscerations of the polls I’ve read:
Political polling has become a lucrative industry as we begin the 21st century, but the quality of polls has been in decline for decades.
John Podhoretz has recently said that most political polls this year are “garbage,” and that the pollsters know it. The low initial response to pollsters by the public is one of the reasons why the “margin of error” is much larger than pollsters will admit. With hundreds of millions of dollars at stake, it is no wonder that most pollsters maintain a cabal of silence about the true value of their product. In virtually all of the contested major races this year, there are numerous polls which have attempted to measure voter sentiment. There are local and state polls (mostly by newspapers and universities), and national polls conducted by consultants and pollsters for cash and for media attention that promotes their polls.
A detailed examination of the mathematical and statistical reasons why polls have become so inaccurate over the past several decades belongs to another page and another time, but I am convinced (and believe it can be undeniably demonstrated) that the so-called margins of error in most political polls is not the usual three to five points, but really ten points or more. If that is so, the dependence on polls by the media and politicians is not only unjustified, but is likely to misinform the public. This year the evidence is rather overwhelming in that similar polls taken at the same time with similar samples have come up with such divergent results. Who is to be believed?
Read on. Good political prognostication, Casselman says, takes patience, legwork, and an almost uncanny ability to listen to what people are saying underneath what they’re saying. And even then it’s fallible, because a finger on the voting lever concentrates and crystallizes the mind in unpredictable ways.
So, happy (?!) Election Day, everybody. See you here tonight.
This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 7th, 2006 and is filed under Elections, Polls. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
November 7th, 2006 at 1:15 pm
“a finger on the voting lever concentrates and crystallizes the mind in unpredictable ways”
This is certainly true for me. The run up to an election is a battle between my head and my heart, between immediate gratification and protecting future generations, between Ideology and pragmatism, between being my brothers keeper and survival of the fittest.
It is always a personal adventure and revelation when I am face to face with a ballot.
November 7th, 2006 at 1:20 pm
That’s a beautiful comment (funny how voting brings out the poetry in people!) and it convinced me to blogroll Austin Centrist!
November 7th, 2006 at 1:40 pm
Austin Centrist wasn’t on your blogroll? Tsk, tsk. I though you had more love than that for us Texas centrists! ;-)
November 7th, 2006 at 6:03 pm
I just found a great comical relief to this stressful election day. Check out this fun site that lets you cutomize your own election button onscreen. The possibilites are endless and equally hilarious.
The link is: http://www.imagechef.com/ic/make.jsp?tid=Election+Campaign+Button
or type, ‘Election Button’ into Google and hit ‘I’m Feeling Lucky’