Are political polls accurate? This case study says not very...

RealClearPolitics.com & original material ^ | 10/21/04

[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 just before an election can be compared for accuracy to the actual results of real voters expressing their real attitudes at the ballot box.

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. 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 was 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

[Wolfstar]

This is a repost of a 10/21/03 FR article/thread. Click here to go to the original.

I reposted this because, (1) it's timely, (2) the polls in this presidential election are all over the place, and (3) the "internal" questions — meaning all those except the pure horserace question — are confusing, to say the least.

It's hard to ask people who care so much about the outcome of this presidential election to ignore the polls, but that's precisely what we all should do. Instead of wringing our hands about polls, we all ought to be doing everything possible to get the vote out on our side. That's what will count in the end.

Besides, haven't we all learned to be skeptical of media honesty thanks to the Dan Rather incident and similar incidents in recent years? We should be equally as skeptical of their polling honesty.

[Wolfstar]

Ping: If folks could only get over their addiction to polls, I think the Republic would be much better off.

[kellynla]

not to mention people lie! LOL

[swilhelm73]

the polls in this presidential election are all over the place

That is something that has bugged me for years.

Two polls will come out, both claiming to have a MOE of say 3%. Poll one might have Bush 52 Kerry 46 (+6). Poll two will have Bush 47 Kerry 48 (-1).

Looking at this, even if we accept that the MOE means any value within it is equally likely (which is NOT true), then both of the these polls cannot be "accurate".

[swilhelm73]

not to mention people lie! LOL

In all seriousness, I think this is a *major* problem with polls that normalize their value for party registration like Zogby. What percentage of Democrats, or even Republicans, will claim to me independents? Even a fraction throws his results *way* off, much like in 2002.

[Names Ash Housewares]

The candidate leading after Labor day usually wins........ No Democrat in recent history have overcome a labor day lead by a Republican. "Only Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush have overcome a Labor Day lead by their opponent since 1948"

"The Gallup polls taken between October 12 and 16, have been very strong predictors. They have identified the winner in every election since 1952"

Senators rarely win, Its been over 40 years. JFK was the last and just barely.

Amazingly only * three* incumbents have lost in the last *90* years, *all* had bad economies dogging them.

Economic indicators favor re-election of the incumbent. Eight forecasting models are unanimous in predicting Bush will defeat Democrat John Kerry http://quote.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000103&sid=a1OhVbkS8pp4&refer=us

No wartime President seeking re-election has lost, *ever*.

All sucessful Democrat challengers in recent history have been Governors from the south.

No Democrat has been sucessful in recent history without carrying the south. The south is solid Bush country.

No challenger has won without at least an 8 point gallup convention bump. Kerrys went negative. Bush has inarguably now a signifigant bounce. And the media had told us everyone was decided already.

Gallup Approval numbers for Bush are in re-election territory.

Not too meaningful but interesting...If the market is up on the last day of an incumbents convention, 80% of them were re-elected. Market was up real good on the last day of the RNC.

Kerrys wife is a kook. Its not an indicator, but must be mentioned anyways. http://strangecosmos.com/images/content/102440.jpg

Bush wins the Scholastic poll another very accurate predictor. Scholastic has been conducting polls since 1940, with predictions only wrong in two close elections: 1948 when students chose Thomas Dewey over Harry Truman, and 1960, predicting Richard Nixon would beat John Kennedy.

"For the last six presidential elections, since Ronald Reagan's first victory, sales of rubber Halloween masks caricaturing the Republican and Democratic candidates have predicted the next president, according to an Internet costume seller. President Bush is leading so far this year. As of Thursday, 55 percent of the masks sold were of Bush and 45 percent of John Kerry, said Daniel Haight, chief operating officer of New Berlin-based Buyseasons, which owns Buycostumes.com. "The mask sales have been 100 percent accurate," Haight said. "So far we have no reason to believe this year will be any different."

Pew Research ......... http://people-press.org/reports/display.php3?PageID=750 Post-9/11 Parity "The Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, and Bush's response to the attacks, marked a major turning point in party identification. Republican party identification rose to 30%, while the Democrats fell to 31%, putting the parties into a virtual tie for the allegiance of the public. Because Republicans traditionally turn out to vote in higher numbers than do Democrats, the current division in party affiliation among the public could provide the GOP with a slight electoral advantage, all other things being equal."

[Navy Patriot]

not to mention people lie!

I resemble that!

[Pres Raygun]

My pet peeve regarding polls is the common misconception that margin of error is an indicator of accuracy. MOE is a measure of the polls precision. The precision of a poll or any measuring technique or device refers to how repeatable the method or tool is in obtaining the same result if used repeatably. Accuracy on the other hand refers to whether the poll is correct, that is does it correctly reflect reality. A poll (if the sample size is large enough) can have a MOE of <1%, but if the methodology of the poll is wrong and the sample is biased, the poll can have an error of almost any percentage. MOE is therefore a lower limit on how accurate a poll can be, not an upper limit as most people believe.

[kellynla]

I don't know about nationally, but I do know in CA you have almost 20 percent of the electorate who are registered Independents and the majority of them won't make up their minds until the eve of or the day of the election...

and the Independents turn elections in CA...
It's too bad W doesn't campaign out here because I think he would have a good chance of winning the state...
there are only about 43% registered 'Rats in the state compared to 35% Republicans...and most of the 'Rats are concentrated in LA & SF metro areas.

[My2Cents]

This is an excellent analysis. I observed the same phenonenon during the recall election. SurveyUSA nailed the final results, and their results consistently showed support for recall, and for Arnold, when other polls were all over the political map.

Note the LA Times poll results for Aug. 16-21 (22% for Arnold), compared with Survey USA's results for Aug. 23-25 (45% for Arnold) -- a 23% difference. Note again the Sept. 6-10 LA Times poll (25% for Arnold), compared with SUSA for about the same period, Sept. 6-8 (39% for Arnold) -- again, a major disparity. Because the Survey USA poll nailed the final result, and always showed Arnold ahead and recall favored, one almost has to conclude that Arnold was never behind in that race, and the other polls, particularly the LA Times, were into fabricating polling results.

The LA Times polls in particular are, in my opinion, a case study in how the media tries to influence opinion through bogus polling results.

[My2Cents]

My hope is that many polls will get this election so WRONG that they will be soundly discredited. I don't remember who said it, but they were right when they said that polls were the crack cocaine of the MSM. This election has clearly shown that the MSM is not only blantantly biased, but that it exerts too much influence on the election process, and media polls are one way that they exert their influence.

What has puzzled me about this campaign is that a clear left-winger, pacifist nut like Kerry would be running so close to Bush. By all accounts, Kerry should be running 20 points behind Bush. Why isn't he? There are two possible explanations: 1) As Evan Thomas of Newsweek has said, the media is promoting Kerry, and this will make a 15% difference in support for Kerry; or 2) the polls are bogus.

[alloysteel]

Polls are, by their very nature, calculated guesses, sometimes with a scientific basis, and with varying degrees of sophistication. Scientific wild-(a**) guesses, in fact, commonly referred to "SWAG".

There are going to be so many challenges to the results of the poll to be recorded as of November 2, 2004, that the results may not be known for weeks after the final ballot is cast, opened, and recorded. The first challenge will come on "equal representation", potential voters who did not successfully register to vote, followed by complaints of registered voters who were denied the opportunity to vote, inaccuracies in tallying the vote, and errors in certification of the vote totals.

Thousands, perhaps millions, of erroneous or outright fraudulent registrations have been submitted to election board offices all over America, and the sheer volume was intended to overwhelm the capabilities of the registration process.

Nobody who is aware and still breathing should have problems with being able to cast a ballot. Almost all states have either early or absentee voting programs, a number of these states have both. There is a firm cutoff date on the exercise of either of these two options.

Questions about accuracies in vote count have resulted in the near standardization of just a few voting systems, and almost complete abandonment of tallying votes by hand count. Yet there are those who, for whatever reason, still choose not to believe a mechanical tally.

There may be errors in a mechanically measured vote count, but almost always, a hand count has a greater potential for error. Yet there are those who demand a hand count as the only legally acceptable method of settling disputed vote totals.

[Wolfstar]

Precisely. Polling is supposed to be scientific. Well, in science, no hypothesis can be considered proven until multiple independent researchers arrive at the same results. Rarely are two polls ever alike, even when they are taken during the same period of time and are about exactly the same subject.

[Wolfstar]

All of what you posted, taken together, is equally as valid as any professionally done (and expensive) poll.

[standupfortruth]

AMEN to this brother! I have been suggesting that folks get off their poll habit for months now. JUST MAKE IT HAPPEN IN NOVEMBER!

[Wolfstar]

My first pet peeve regarding polls is that they are the modern equivalent of reading entrails for omens. My second pet peeve about them is that media polls are used to manipulate public opinion, not merely report it.

[My2Cents]

Thanks for the impressive rundown. As Sean Hannity would say, "Let not your heart be troubled." Encouraging indeed.

[Wolfstar]

LOL!!! That's the spirit.

[Wolfstar]

I agree with everything you said in #10, except that I think many independents don't make their minds up until they actually get in the voting booth. There, at long last, they have to [blank] or get off the pot -- that is, unless they wake up on election day and decide not to vote.