[Vision2020] Polls 'oversampling' Democrats?

[Sue Hovey]

Gee, I would have thought any pollster with any credentials at all would understand measures of central tendency.  Are you saying Central Tendency Theorem is something else again?

Sue H. 
From: Art Deco 
Sent: Monday, November 05, 2012 2:40 PM
To: vision2020 at moscow.com 
Subject: Re: [Vision2020] Polls 'oversampling' Democrats?

As someone who has acted as a consultant in years past to various polling attempts, I can safely say that almost every poll fails to meet the standards set for using the Central Tendency Theorem, the mathematical/statistical basis for accurate sampling.  Some pollsters do not seem to really understand it at all.

The most obvious error is the lack of a random sample in these times due to several factors.  The problem is sometimes so bad that the degree of randomness is not even able to be reasonably predicted.  Therefore, the confidence value and range of error cannot be accurately calculated.

I haven't done it, but if someone were to Google several of the most recent, so-called major polls, I'd guess  there would be a range of predictions.

w.


On Mon, Nov 5, 2012 at 5:14 PM, Scott Dredge <scooterd408 at hotmail.com> wrote:

  Not surprisingly is that right wing radio / media has been complaining about liberal pollsters supposedly 'oversampling' Democratic voters so make it look like Obama is winning.  I'd think that polling is fairly accurate these days and if the pollsters track record is poor, they wouldn't get much credence or attention until they made the necessary adjustments to have their predictions more closely matched to results.  I'm looking forward to watching all the fun tomorrow night!

  My can't miss prediction:  Meet the new boss.  Same as the old boss.

  -Scott


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-- 
Art Deco (Wayne A. Fox)
art.deco.studios at gmail.com






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