Do Polls Actually Tell Us What America Thinks?
According to a CNN pollster, only 1/8 of 1% of the population (~25,000 of 300+ million people) actually get polled. The primary system relies on phone interviews. Does that really give an accurate picture? What about pollster's bias? People who don't have phones? People who have only cell phones? People who work split schedules?
No. They're basically flawed.
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Yes. They're accurate.
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I think the science of polling is advanced enough that they are accurate. The problem is that I believe people lie and that pollsters rarely reveal to us the exact wording they use in their polls and so we dont know what intentional biases are built deliberately into the poll or exactly what question they are designed to answer. Lastly, dont forget that most polls are ordered by an less than non interested party. 557 days ago | Tagged As: Yes. They're accurate.
They're accurate to the percent that they say they are. If you notice, all of them have disclaimers about the percentage they might be off based on sampling error. For the first half of 2007, only 15% of households didn't have a landline. The gallup poll also tests cellphone users. If you randomize the people you call enough, that's not a very significant loss. The rest is just statistics about sample size and random sampling math. Those footnotes explain what the survey really is surveying. Just remember that if the error margin is 2%, it could be that one is 2% higher and the other is 2% lower |
