Are political polls accurate? CA recall study of 20 polls says...NEVER TRUST POLLS AGAIN!

RealClearPolitics.com & original material ^ | 10/21/03 | Wolfstar

[Wolfstar]

Ah, the omnipresent poll. The media punditocracy is addicted to using polls to tell us what "the American people feel" (never think) about everything from a president's so-called approval rating, to how a candidate's chances stack up against others in a race, to our "feelings" about various policy and social issues. Although the public has absolutely no way to evaluate the vast majority of polls for accuracy, most of us simply accept them as incontrovertible indicators of truth. Why? The answer probably is because we're told that polls are "scientific" since they use statistical-type analysis, and most of us tend to equate science with a search for objective truth.

Despite the scientific patina of a Margin of Error, how does one incontrovertibly prove a poll to be accurate? For nearly all polls, the answer is that it can't be done. In the political realm, only polls taken closest to an election can be compared for accuracy to the actual results of real voters expressing their real attitudes at the ballot box.

Nevertheless, the public is conditioned not to look too closely at the accuracy of polls. We're told polls are "just a snapshot in time." So we learn to shrug when there are big swings in, say, a president's "approval ratings" from one month to the next even though nothing particularly new happened during that time. Despite the fact that only a handful of polls close to elections can be verified against objective results of real votes, polls affect our society in several ways. The worst is that many politicians, hanging on their every nuance, too often make crucial policy decisions based on polls wielded like clubs by the media and special-interest groups.

So what's the truth about polls? Few in the public have the time or resources to do an in-depth study in an attempt to answer that question, while those who butter their bread on the back of polls have no incentive to do so. Ah, but fate stepped in this year in the form of the California Recall and provided an excellent opportunity to do a case study of multiple polls taken in a highly compressed period of time. Since all poll results in this study were obtained relatively close to Election Day, a comparison to actual election results is not only easier, but also more instructive than, say, an apples-to-oranges comparison of a year's worth of "approval ratings" to an election outcome.

This study encompasses 20 polls taken by nine polling organizations between Aug. 7 and Oct. 5, 2003. It looks at the five most-watched poll questions — those which purported to measure the percent of vote for:

• Yes on recall
• No on recall
• Arnold Schwarzenegger
• Cruz Bustamante
• Tom McClintock

Because there are 20 polls and five questions, this study encompasses 100 individual results. When analyzed by several criteria, such as poll date and accuracy for each of the five questions, an eye-popping picture of polling precision — or lack thereof — comes into sharp focus. Note that "accurate" in this study means: (1) a poll result within that poll's MOE, and (2) as compared to the actual election results. "Inaccurate" or "wrong" means a poll result outside that poll's MOE as compared to the actuals.

Q: Are political polls accurate?
A: Based on this study, the answer is: While some results for some questions in a multi-query poll may be accurate, most polls, when taken in their entirety, are not. Here's why: Of the 100 individual question results, more than half (57) were wrong (outside their MOE's), as compared to the actual election results.

However, the stunning fact is that only 1 poll in 20 gave accurate results across-the-board for all five questions. This was the last poll taken by Survey USA from Oct. 3-5. Only 4 of 20 got both the Yes and No on recall questions right, while only that last Survey USA poll gave accurate Candidate results. In other words:

• Yes/No: 16 of 20 polls (80%) got either the Yes question or the No question right, but not both.

• Candidates: Only one poll (5%) gave accurate results for all three candidates. Most importantly, many of the inaccurate results were wildly wrong and served only to totally skew the picture fed to the public by reporters on the presumed status of the race.

Looking at accuracy another way, of the 100 individual question results, less than half (43) were right within their poll MOE's. Most (67) under-estimated the actual election results, and only seven poll questions called that election result precisely.

Q: Does averaging several polls over a period of time give a more accurate picture?
A: Some pollsters, reporters and others who rely on them believe either a tracking poll, or an average of several polls taken over a period of time, are the best methods of obtaining an accurate picture of public attitudes. Due to the compressed two-month recall campaign, all 20 polls, taken together, constitute a form of tracking poll. Yet, as already noted, their often wildly inaccurate results only contributed to a false week-to-week perception of the race. So would averaging the results of all 20 polls give a more accurate picture? The answer based on this study is a qualified yes. Here's why. First, all 20 MOE's were averaged to establish a baseline, which works out to ±3.6%.

• For Yes, averaging the 20 polls gives 57%, which is 2 points over the actual and within the average MOE. So far, so good. But, for No, averaging all results gives 39%, which is 6 points under the actual and outside the average MOE. That's 50-50 — or as good as a coin toss.

• Candidates: Averaging 20 polls gives 34% for Arnold Schwarzenegger — a whopping 15 points under his actual percent of the vote and obviously well outside any MOE. On the other hand, the average for Cruz Bustamante is 28%, four points under his actual and just outside the average MOE. For Tom McClintock, the average is 13%, precisely the percent of the actual votes he received. Averaging just misses getting two of three right here.

Q: Is the Margin of Error (MOE) really useful in assessing a poll's accuracy?
A: Based on this study, the answer is a resounding NO! The smallest MOE given was ±2%; the largest ±5.6%. Interestingly, ±2% was for one of the earliest, most inaccurate polls, while ±5.6% was for the last and most accurate.

• Yes: Of the 20 polls, 11 (55%) were accurate (within their stated MOE's) when compared to the actual election result.

• No: Only 6 of 20 (30%) were accurate.

• Arnold Schwarzenegger: Repeat, ONE result was accurate. Most vastly underestimated his vote strength. Pollsters routinely gave an MOE of ±3 or 4 points, yet just as routinely came in with double-digit under-estimates. The worst was the Public Policy Institute poll of Aug. 8-17, which gave an MOE of ±2%, but underestimated the actual result by 26 points! If you're tempted to say, "Well, that's because it was an early poll," nope, not so. As late as Sept. 25-27 (Gallup) and Sept. 25-29 (L. A. Times), two polls with MOE's of ±3% both underestimated the actual vote for Arnold by 9 points.

• Cruz Bustamante: Only 6 of 20 (30%) were accurate.

• Tom McClintock: 13 of 20 (65%) were accurate. (Note that the results for Tom McClintock were the most accurate across all dates and pollsters. Even when wrong, they were wrong only by a small margin. See poll bias question for further discussion.)

Q: Do polls become more accurate closer to an election?
A: The broad answer is a qualified yes — qualified because, in this study, the polls were inconsistent on this question. Results for some questions in early polls were quite accurate, while some late poll results were very inaccurate. However, the trend was to become more accurate closer to the election.

As already noted, the last poll was the only one that got all five questions right within its MOE. The following table shows the total poll questions that the first/last seven polls got right within each poll's MOE. An accuracy of 100% in this instance would be 35 questions right (7 polls x 5 questions). Note that just under twice as many question results were right in late polls than in early ones. Nevertheless, even the late polls (last two weeks) got less than half (49%) of the questions right.

First 7 polls (8/8 to 9/8)		x	Last 7 polls (9/24 to 10/5)
Question	# Poll Questions Within MOE	x	Question	# Poll Questions Within MOE
YES	2	x	YES	5
NO	1	x	NO	2
AS	0	x	AS	1
CB	1	x	CB	4
TC	5	x	TC	5
TOTAL	9 (26%)	x	TOTAL	17 (49%)

Q: Are political polls biased?
A: If any given poll is biased, the hard question to answer is whether or not it is due to ideology or methodology. Every expert on polling says that variables such as the way a question is worded; who the respondents are; the order of questions; even what time of day/week a poll is taken can create a bias. (Many polling organizations do not make their methodology public.) As the following demonstrates, an argument can be made either way for these California recall polls:

• Yes/No: The polls tended to over-estimate the strength of the Yes vote, with 12 of 20 results (60%) over the actual election outcome. The opposite is the case for No, with a whopping 18 of 20 (90%) giving results that underestimated actual. If this odd disparity was due to an ideological bias, why would polling firms want to consistently under-estimate the strength of the No on recall vote?

• Candidates: Here's where a comparison of poll results to the actual election is especially shocking. When one looks at the results for Arnold Schwarzenegger vs. Tom McClintock, the contrast is amazing. It can't be emphasized enough that ALL the polls underestimated the strength of the vote for Arnold - most by a statistically vast margin. The most accurate was 3 points under. The least accurate was 27 points under the 49% of the vote he actually received. An astounding 13 of 20 polls (65%) underestimated his actual vote by a double-digit margin.
  
  In contrast, the reverse happened for Tom McClintock. Half the polls over-estimated his vote strength and three called it precisely - that is, 65% either called McClintock's vote exactly or overestimated it. As can be seen in the Candidate table below, in August the polls tended to slightly underestimate McClintock's vote compared to his actual. In mid-September, they began going the other way and overestimated it by from 1 to 5 points right up to the last Survey USA poll, which called his 13% exactly.
  
  Interestingly, although far, far less severely than those for Schwarzenegger, the polls also tended to underestimate Bustamante's strength with the voters, with 15 of the 20 (75%) giving results under his actual election outcome.

So are political polls biased? Whatever the answer, the staggeringly inaccurate polling for Schwarzenegger — and moderately inaccurate results for Bustamante — as compared to the surprisingly accurate, even slightly inflated results for McClintock certainly should raise a lot of eyebrows. Of the five poll questions in this study, results for Arnold Schwarzenegger were by far the most inaccurate, while those for Tom McClintock were the most accurate. Was there really a mid-to-late September surge for McClintock? Or, as many suspected, were the polling organizations trying to inflate impressions of his strength as compared to that for Schwarzenegger? And did the polls underestimate Bustamante's vote strength in order to boost Gray Davis? One would be tempted to say "yes" to these questions were it not for the fact that 90% of the polls also underestimated the No on recall vote.

Q: Which polling organization was the most accurate?
A: The following table speaks for itself, although the reader is encouraged to take particular note of the poor performance of two big national polls, Time/CNN and Gallup.

Polling Organization	# of Polls Taken	Total # of Results (# Polls x 5 Ques.)	# of Correct Results	Percent Correct
Knight Ridder	1	5	3	60%
Los Angeles Times	3	15	9	60%
Survey USA	5	25	13	52%
CA Chbr of Commerce	2	10	5	50%
Field Poll	3	15	7	47%
Time/CNN	1	5	2	40%
Public Policy Institute	2	10	3	30%
Gallup	2	10	1	10%
Stanford U.	1	5	0	0%

Q: What conclusions can be drawn from this study?
A: Even the most accurate polls in this study were wrong 40% of the time overall (based on above accuracy table). The accuracy of each of their internals was worse. So, when the national media tout polls from Gallup, Time/CNN, Newsweek, Zogby, and such about what "the American people feel" regarding something insubstantial like "presidential approval;" or whether or not they want to re-elect the president; or which issues are most important to them; or how a person who's name is all but unknown nationally suddenly becomes "the frontrunner" for a party's nomination, it's wise to keep three things in mind:

1. There is no objective way to verify the accuracy of most polls.
   
   
2. It is part of human nature to want to predict (thus control) the future. However, this study demonstrates unequivocally that, whether or not it's due to political bias or flawed methodology, polls often drastically misinform the public.
   
   
3. Only 1 in 20 polls in this study got all five questions right. In other words, 95% polls were wrong on one or more of their questions. So when a pollster uses the technique of summing one individual internal question result to another in order to claim something about public opinion, all the pollster may be doing in reality is compounding errors. For example, when Zogby adds answers for, say, "fair" and "poor" together, if either the result for "fair," or the one for "poor," or both are wrong, all he is doing is compounding errors and giving false information to the media and public.

Notes for Tables of Results:

1. The 20 polls and their MOE's were obtained through RealPolitics.com, and Google searches for those where the RealPolitics.com links no longer worked.
2. Results are as of Oct. 20 with 100% of precincts reporting.
3. Over/Under = number of points over (+n) or under (-n) the actual election result.

YES/NO Table Of Results:

Final Results		55%			45%
Poll	Date	YES	+Over -Under	Within MOE	NO	+Over -Under	Within MOE	MOE
Survey USA	Oct. 3–5	57%	+2	Y	43%	-2	Y	±5.6%
Knight Ridder	Oct. 1–4	54%	-1	Y	41%	-4	N	±3%
Field Poll	Sep. 29–Oct. 1	57%	+2	Y	39%	-6	N	±4.8%
Survey USA	Sep. 28–30	61%	+6	N	39%	-6	N	±3.7%
Los Angeles Times	Sep. 25–29	56%	+1	Y	42%	-3	Y	±3%
Gallup	Sep. 25–27	63%	+8	N	35%	-10	N	±3%
CA Chbr of Commerce	Sep. 24–25	53%	-2	Y	41%	-4	N	±3.5%
Survey USA	Sep. 19–22	57%	+2	Y	42%	-3	Y	±3.5%
Public Policy Institute	Sep. 8–17	53%	-2	Y	42%	-3	Y	±3%
Los Angeles Times	Sep. 6–10	50%	-5	N	47%	+2	Y	±3%
Survey USA	Sep. 6–8	62%	+7	N	37%	-8	N	±3.7%
Field Poll	Sep. 4–7	55%	exact	Y	40%	-5	N	±4.5%
CA Chbr of Commerce	Sep. 1–4	52%	-3	Y	41%	-4	N	±3.1%
Stanford U.	Aug. 29–Sep.8	62%	+7	N	38%	-7	N	±3.4%
Survey USA	Aug. 23–25	64%	+9	N	35%	-10	N	±3.7%
Los Angeles Times	Aug. 16–21	50%	-5	N	45%	exact	Y	±3%
Field Poll	Aug. 10–13	58%	+3	Y	37%	-8	N	±5%
Public Policy Institute	Aug. 8–17	58%	+3	N	36%	-9	N	±2%
Time/CNN	Aug. 8	54%	-1	Y	35%	-10	N	±4.3%
Gallup	Aug. 7–10	69%	+14	N	26%	-19	N	±4%

Average of 20 polls		57%	+2	Y	39%	-6	N	3.6%
# Results within MOE				11			6
# Results outside MOE				9			14
# Same as actual			1			1
# Over actual			12			1
# Under actual			7			18

CANDIDATE Table Of Results:

Final Results		49%			32%			13%
Poll	Date	Arnold S.	AS +Over -Under	Within MOE	Bustamante	CB +Over -Under	Within MOE	McClintock	TM +Over -Under	Within MOE	MOE
Survey USA	Oct. 3–5	46%	-3	Y	34%	+2	Y	13%	exact	Y	±5.6%
Knight Ridder	Oct. 1–4	37%	-12	N	29%	-3	Y	15%	+2	Y	±3%
Field Poll	Sep. 29–Oct. 1	36%	-13	N	26%	-6	N	16%	+3	Y	±4.8%
Survey USA	Sep. 28–30	45%	-4	N	28%	-4	N	16%	+3	Y	±3.7%
Los Angeles Times	Sep. 25–29	40%	-9	N	32%	exact	Y	15%	+2	Y	±3%
Gallup	Sep. 25–27	40%	-9	N	25%	-7	N	18%	+5	N	±3%
CA Chbr of Commerce	Sep. 24–25	35%	-14	N	31%	-1	Y	17%	+4	N	±3.5%
Survey USA	Sep. 19–22	39%	-10	N	32%	exact	Y	18%	+5	N	±3.5%
Public Policy Institute	Sep. 8–17	26%	-23	N	28%	-4	N	14%	+1	Y	±3%
Los Angeles Times	Sep. 6–10	25%	-24	N	30%	-2	Y	18%	+5	N	±3%
Survey USA	Sep. 6–8	39%	-10	N	29%	-3	Y	16%	+3	Y	±3.7%
Field Poll	Sep. 4–7	25%	-24	N	30%	-2	Y	13%	exact	Y	±4.5%
CA Chbr of Commerce	Sep. 1–4	28%	-21	N	33%	+1	Y	12%	-1	Y	±3.1%
Stanford U.	Aug. 29–Sep. 8	40%	-9	N	28%	-4	N	8%	-5	N	±3.4%
Survey USA	Aug. 23–25	45%	-4	N	29%	-3	Y	11%	-2	Y	±3.7%
Los Angeles Times	Aug. 16–21	22%	-27	N	35%	+3	Y	12%	-1	Y	±3%
Field Poll	Aug. 10–13	22%	-27	N	25%	-7	N	9%	-4	Y	±5%
Public Policy Institute	Aug. 8–17	23%	-26	N	18%	-14	N	5%	-8	N	±2%
Time/CNN	Aug. 8	25%	-24	N	15%	-17	N	9%	-4	Y	±4.3%
Gallup	Aug. 7–10	42%	-7	N	22%	-10	N	13%	exact	Y	±4%

Average of 20 polls		34%	-15	N	28%	-4	N	13%	exact	Y	3.6%
# Results within MOE				1			11			14
# Results outside MOE				19			9			6
# Same as actual			0			2			3
# Over actual			0			3			10
# Under actual			20			15			7

[Grampa Dave]

There is another aspect of these polls that can't be studied.

I was retired during the 2000 elections. It was amazing how often I got calls from pollers during the time before the election.

Later when the data showed that GW would win (before the dead rat votes and illegal alien votes were counted), my interviews got really short.

It went something like this, "Are you a registered republican, democrat or independent?"

When I answered a registered Republican, the next question was often, "Would you describe yourself as a liberal, moderate or conservative Republican?"

After I answered "A conservative Republican." That was usually the end of the interview. I was never polled.

[ampat]

Lots of time, energy and money spent on polls and this post. All I can say is: DUH!

[alwaysconservative]

Oh, I agree with YOUR conclusions, not those of the media! Actually, the point I was trying to make (and apparently not doing a very good job of it!) was to question whether or not "push polls", which I consider to be invalid, should be included in this tally, since their purpose was NOT to measure a random voter response, but to push or telemarket a certain view. It was not a legitimate poll in the sense of what you are evaluating, even if it was accurate on a couple of points. It's the difference of "proving" something with anecdotal evidence or legitimate scientific methodology.

[DoctorZIn]

This post has been added to the… California In Transition- Must read Threads!

Want on our daily or major news ping lists? Freepmail DoctorZin

[Doctor Stochastic]

The article seems almost as inaccurate as the polls in some ways. For example, the yes-no vote are described as though they were independent variables rather than correlated. The MOE's are incorrectly described for multiple choice polls (although the polls themselves probably do just as badly.) Additionally, the MOE only describes the statistical error in the sample; polling (as pointed out by the pollsters) is subject to greater error through systematic effects such as question wording, etc.

[Congressman Billybob]

Back on August 12, in my article "Nuts and Bolts in California," I not only successfully predicted all the results of the California recall election, I also predicted the incompetent struggle to understand what happened, after the polls were proven grossly inaccurate. (In all fairness, I missed exactly one prediction. I wrote that there would be one extra Republican candidate whose vote totals would not effect the outcome of the election. But I thought that hoeless Republican would be Bill Simon, rather than Tom McClintock.) I am curious about the methodology of RealClearPolitics. The only three polls that were close to the final pattern of this election across the board were conducted by Stanford University. For some reason, the source claims they did only one. They did three. And the reason they were closer than all the others to the final result is that THEY USED THE ACTUAL CALIFORNIA BALLOT rather than phone questions, to gauge the intentions of the potential voters.

The Editors of RealClearPolitics are usually pretty sharp cookies. But on this unique election, with the evidence in their hands, they are still missing the boat. Big time.

Congressman Billybob

Latest column, "Three People who Have it Coming," discussion thread. IF YOU WANT A FREEPER IN CONGRESS, CLICK HERE.

[Saundra Duffy]

Thanks for a very interesting analysis. I'll pass it on. Thanks again.

[Pres Raygun]

Excellent work. For long time Freepers, the inaccuracy of polls is well known. The MOE of a poll is greatly misunderstood by the public. MOE refers only to the precision of the poll and has nothing to do with the poll's accuracy. Technically precision is a measure of how a particular polling methodology will give the same result if conducted over and over again. For instance if a polling company conducted the same poll three times on the same day, each of the three polls should give the same results within the MOE. Accuracy on the other hand refers to whether or not a particular measurement (poll) is correct or gets the right answer. Precision (MOE) has nothing to do with accuracy. For a poll to be accurate, the polling sample must be unbiased, meaning the people polled must be statistically representative of the actual electorate. Pollsters realize that they never have a truly unbiased sample. Consequently, they try to compensate for the bias inherent in their methodology, but fudging the raw poll results, by correction factors. The only way for a pollster to determine these correction factors is to do the same analysis you have done on their own polls.

In conclusion polls are not to be trusted. Polls with an MOE of 3% may be inaccurate by 20% and the public has no way of knowing the accuracy of a poll until after the election. Tracking polls have some limited value in showing trends, because movement from one candidate to another is somewhat independent of the sample bias and of the pollster's correction factors. Only the direction of the trend is somewhat reliable, since the magnitude of the trend is dependent on the sample bias and the pollster's correction factors. Unfortunately, trends are often only a few percentage points and therefore are under the polls MOE making them meaningless.

[Wolfstar]

Your personal experience is echoed in one way or another by many, many people. I think many of us are intuitively suspicious of polls, but we go along with them partly because we enjoy trying to predict the future, and partly because we're told they are "scientific."

Why is it that between the late 1700's and the mid 1900's, Americans managed to elect all sorts of people to all sorts of positions without polls? Yet these days, we seem more dependent on them than ever. We are like people using a crutch when it isn't necessary. Well, a good challenge every now and again never hurt any institution.

[Grampa Dave]

Phoney poll and/or skewed results have been a major tool for the Rats for over a generation.

The recall of Davis and election of Arnold pulled back the curtain on this tool re the LA Slimes and other fishwraps in California.

[Wolfstar]

You're doing fine. I enjoy our electronic conversations and hope you do to. Actually, I made no judgements about these 20 polls. I have no way of knowing if any were push polls or not. Just used the list from RealPolitics.com because it was easily available and accessible. And I took the pollsters at their word. Each of them said their result was accurate within a given MOE. So I took their numbers, compared them to the election outcome, looked at the MOE's and listed the results. Eitehr they were accurate or they were not. Not fancy, but a very straightforward, common man's test.

It's worth bearing in mind that this is a CASE study, not a broad, all-encompassing study. One of my concerns about polling is that few pollsters make their methodology public. That goes to the heart of your point about whether or not one is a push poll. Every single one of these organizations claimed to be accurate. As a member of the general public, I decided to use the tools available to me to test their claims.

[Wolfstar]

...yes-no vote are described as though they were independent variables rather than correlated.

A potential voter has three choices on any ballot issue: to vote yes, to vote no, or not to vote. They are independent choices, and ALL pollsters give separate percentages for yes and no. Because they give separate predictions, each prediction can be tested against the MOE.

The MOE's are incorrectly described for multiple choice polls

In what way? A pollster says he predicts a vote of 55% for yes and 45% for no, and then gives a range plus or minus those figures within which he can claim to be accurate. If the actual election result falls within his MOE, he's predicted the outcome correctly. If not, he's wrong. What's so complicated?

[Wolfstar]

Hello, "Congressman." I followed your posts on the recall threads, and you most definitely did predict the outcome correctly. I also did, but on gut political instinct based on many years of involvement in grass-roots Republican politics here in the Los Angeles area.

RealClearPolitics.com did not do this case study, I did. I used the list of polls on their site. They only listed one for Stanford. Please use the links provided to see for yourself. I took those 20 polls as a CASE and tested their accuracy.

I'm just a member of the general public who has no pretensions, but does have a desire to evaluate the quality of the product pollsters sell. After all, many politicians make vital policy decisions only after checking the latest polls.

[Revolting cat!]

Polls are accurate as far as they represent the answers provided by their respondents. Beyond that, they're bogus from the getgo, "scientific" explanations notwithstanding. 1000 whatever responses represent 1000 whatever responses, not millions, sorry!

People lie to others, to themselves, people don't know and will not admit it, or polls don't allow them, people feel pressure answering questions, people are vain, cynical, flippant, etc.

The only polls that matter are at the cash register (or the ballot box as the case may be.) It's been demonstrated many times that people lie, consciously or not, about the food they eat, about their driving habits, and so on. I used to participate in focus groups and one of the more interesting things I noted was that the participants expressed totally different, and seemingly more honest opinions in the elevator going down after the focus group session from those expressed during the session. Astrology works better and is more fun too!

[Wolfstar]

Thanks for your thoughtful reply. As already mentioned on the thread, as a member of the general public, I take an MOE to be exactly what the media and pollsters represent it to be — a range of percentage points within which a given poll result can be considered to be accurate. Your point that MOE's are greatly misunderstood by the public goes to heart of my premise: That the public has absolutely no way to verify the accuracy of most polls.

What I have done in a kind of big way is to reflect exactly what the general public, most in the media, and even pollsters, themselves, do after every election. Election after election, people routinely look at the last polls that came out, compare them to the actual election results, and make judgements about which polling organization was the most accurate based on whose poll percentages came the closest to the actuals. In other words, they do exactly as I have done in this case study. Except in this case, I looked at 20 polls instead of just a handful.

[Uncle Hal]

Wolfstar-Great post. You must have done a lot of reseach. I hope you can get paid in some way for it. A couple of observations. 1) I believe a reason most polls got McClintock right is because he was a true conservative and many of the voters on the right were loyal to him no matter what. 2) I was polled over the phone and was asked who I was going to vote for in the recall. When I said Arnold, she said "me too". She also said some others things that were pro recall when she got the drift that I was for it. I do not think I would put much faith in that poll, as far as accuracy is concerned.

[k2blader]

Really gotta read this later bump.

[MattAMiller]

Nope. Voter surveys conducted AFTER the election showed most voters made up their minds a month ago. How come NONE of the polls caught this? This is another area where they didn't see voter behavior coming.

Maybe the variation is accounted for by the minority which didn't make up their minds early on. Maybe the people who said they made up their minds months ago were lieing.

[Doctor Stochastic]

The press is pretty bad at representing the MOE. It is not necessarily a rating of accuracy or confidence of the polls. Usually, they press gives what's called a 95% confidence interval. Unfortunately, this doesn't mean that the results fall within the MOE 95% of the time either.

Actually, "yes," "no," and "abstain" cannot be independent. They must sum to 100% and thus at most two are independent.

In most polls, the systematic errors are still bigger than the statistical errors. The article did point out some of these problems.

[Doctor Stochastic]

Very simple. Very clear. Very straightforward.

But incorrect. This is not what the MOE means. Neither press nor the pollsters generally explain things very well.