Posted on 10/25/2006 3:25:53 AM PDT by jalisco555
Zogby International inaccurately conducted a poll of likely voters in the 25th Congressional District, forcing The Post-Standard and NewsChannel 9 the poll's sponsors to scrap a planned release of the results Tuesday evening.
Zogby, a Utica-based firm that does work throughout the world, used the wrong political party breakdown when weighing survey responses, and gave the news organizations results the company founder later said were incorrect.
"The numbers were wrong," said John Zogby, the firm's founder and president. "We made a mistake, and I feel terrible about it. I am mortified."
A Zogby staffer mistakenly used party enrollment figures from the 24th Congressional District to adjust survey results in the 25th District, Zogby said. That gave Republican voters in the sample too much weight, skewing the results.
The incorrect results were reported by NewsChannel 9 at the beginning of its 5 p.m. broadcast and briefly on Syracuse.com. They were quickly corrected. Zogby agreed Tuesday to do an entirely new poll. The Post-Standard and Channel 9 will publish the results once they are certain the survey was done properly.
The poll was an effort to measure how voters may vote in the race between Republican Rep. Jim Walsh and Democratic challenger Dan Maffei. The error was brought to Zogby's attention by the Maffei campaign.
He only admitted it because it showed the Republican with the lead.
Of course. Next step is to properly "adjust" the party affiliations to fix that problem.
Al Zawgbi?
Ow....OW...my eyes hurt from rolling back in my head...
Polls are nearly uniformly crap. I pay absolutely no attention to ANY polls. I am sick and tired of reading rubbish about polls. I, for one, am gratified that even with all his percieved faults, President Bush does not appear to be a slave to polls as his predecessor clearly was.
Hmmm... they might do this on purpose, so when the issue of incorrect weight is ever brought up, somebody can say, "well, from what I read, they oversampling the Republicans, not Democrats...!"
How can ANYONE imagine that Zogby has ANY credibility whatsoever???
None of us here do. Looks like the recipe for his "secret sauce" has been revealed.
Polls comissioned by the news media ARE NOT NEWS. They should go find some real news to report, not journalize.
What is the name of the liberal network he is part of?
Yes, Zogby predicted a Kerry win also.
This poll was only pulled because the skewed results went the wrong way, had it been the Dims in the lead, dead silence.
No kidding. If it weren't so irritating, the transparency would actually be quite funny.
Great point!!! Certainly worth watching out for.
Survey USA also polled our home on that race, but it was automated.
Tellingly, Zogby was a lot closer to the final result than Survey USA was.
I've had a telephone in my name in the phone book for 15 years now and never got polled until a year ago. Now, I get polled regularly, but never for a race in which I can actually vote. Not sure which is more frustrating.
My parents say they've never been polled for a political race in 35 years, even though they've had a listed number and been registered democrats, registered Republicans and even independent at one time or another.
Secret sauce mixup!
"Hey, my Kung Pao chicken tastes like BBQ!"
I get phoned by pollsters quite often.
I always ALWAYS answer the way a liberal democrat would... or refuse to answer at all. Sometimes I tell them I'm Republican, sometimes I tell them I'm "independent" or "moderate"...
Then the idiots wonder why they are so far off in their guesses as to the outcome of an election... LOL
Interesting that they have to do a "whole new poll" to correct the weighting. A clue as to Zogby's methods? They somehow "weight" on the front end?
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