Analyzing The Exit Poll Works : Conducting National Exit Polls

Public opinion polls come in a wide-set of different subjects and are good examples of inductive arguments that are seen and used in our day to day lives to measure the public’s views regarding a particular topic or topics done so by taking a non-biased survey/questions. This is an excellent example of inductive arguments, because the person or party/entity conducting these surveys, is looking to validate their argument and assumptions, or to provide a guarantee of truth in the concluding result. However, it is not simply easy to rely on “experts” and believe that the data from these polls they collect, are completely accurate and are not skewed from their own biases. Since a survey is an inductive generalization, a sample is taken from the target population from which a conclusion is drawn regarding the entire population.Which makes these inductive arguments fall into two categories: either weak or strong.

Voter turnout is the rate by which people vote in elections. The simplest way to calculate a given election's turnout rate is to compare the actual number of voters with the voting-age population. “Voter turnout in the United States is among the worlds’ lowest.” (E.S. 371) The graph below taken from an article written for the Huffington Post in 2012, illustrates how poor United States voter turnout has been as compared to other industrialized nations. Our voter turnout

Undoubtedly, the last 80 years have brought the biggest change to the election process - polling. Beginning with the Gallup poll in 1936, the industry has become a titanic business, growing unregulated by the United States government. Frequently, polls have come under fire for their inaccuracy, or for their role in blocking the Democratic process (the 2000 and 2004 elections come to mind). Nonetheless, the 1992 election was not notable because of alleged bias, but because of what the polls said about

With looming elections, polls with independent samples were taken to obtain the following data concerning the number of people who favor two different major

It was a cold November day as people gathered around their television, eagerly awaiting the news of the 2000 Presidential election. Would the victor be Texas governor George W. Bush or Vice President Al Gore? It was a close election, with Bush only leading by 537 votes. “The 2000 presidential election was the first in 112 years in which a president lost the popular vote, but captured enough states to win the electoral vote.” (The Disputed Election) However, if the majority of eligible Americans would have voted, the outcome may have been different. Throughout American history, the number of voting participants diminishes. According to Warren E. Miller, “[n]early 63 percent of the voting-age populace went to the polls in 1960, when John F. Kennedy

We have come a long way from a time when only white, affluent, property owning males could vote. In terms of ‘voting rights’ it was a gradual expansion of the vote, which slowly began to expand to all whites, individuals once labeled slaves or ‘aliens’, African Americans, military personal and women. To vote in the United States, no longer do you need to pass a literacy test, but you must be a U.S citizen and at least 18 years old on Election Day. In addition, some states also require various periods of residency before voting is permitted. Furthermore some states restrict felons or those mentally incompetent to vote. In Massachusetts, for the first time, there was Early Voting. During this period, October 24th to November 4th, registered voters were allowed to cast their ballots. During this period of Early voting, I along with a group of classmates had the engaging opportunity to be an exit pollster. We decided to canvas much of the Boston area, with hopes of a ranging demographic. This hands-on experience, working with a team in carrying out the exit poll, allowed for a greater insight to the dynamics of election administration, a deeper understanding on the rights of voters and voter turn out, technique for attaining a random sample, the role of the interviewer and importance of survey design.

a. The sample size of this poll is 1,125 adults and was limited to those that reside in the United States. The margin of error is +/- 2.9 percentage points. Most political science research embraces the 95% level of confidence (Damore

The legacy and lessons of Truman’s whistle-stop campaign continue to be studied by political analysts, and politicians today often mimic his campaign methods by scheduling multiple visits to key states, as Truman did. He visited California, Illinois, and Ohio 48 times, compared with 6 visits to those states by Dewey. Political scientist Thomas M. Holbrook concludes that his strategic campaigning in those states and others gave Truman the electoral votes he needed to win (61, 65). The 1948 election also had an effect on pollsters, who, as Elmo Roper admitted, “couldn’t have been more wrong” (qtd. in Karabell 255). Life magazine’s editors concluded that pollsters as well as reporters and commentators were too convinced of a Dewey victory to analyze the polls seriously, especially the opinions of undecided voters (Karabell 256). Pollsters assumed that undecided voters would vote in the same proportion as decided voters — and that turned out to be a false assumption (Karabell 258). In fact, the lopsidedness of the polls might have led voters who supported Truman to call themselves undecided out of an unwillingness to associate themselves with the losing side, further skewing the polls’ results (McDonald, Glynn, Kim, and Ostman 152). Such errors led pollsters to change their methods significantly after the 1948 election. After the election, many political analysts, journalists, and historians concluded

The Journal Article, Fear in the Voting Booth: The 2004 Presidential Election, was chosen because it offers an analysis of the role that fear played in the first election following the 9/11 attacks. This source focuses on how the fear, anxiety and uncertainty of these attacks influenced voters’ behavior during the election between Republican nominee, George W. Bush and Democratic nominee, John Kerry. This article was chosen because of its specificity which compliments the rest of the sources. The next source comes from the Encyclopedia of U.S. Campaigns, Elections, and Electoral Behavior and is called “Issue Salience and Voting Behavior”. This encyclopedia article compliments the rest of the sources well because it allows one to understand

The historians or professional observers of the presidential survey the same participants for 2009 and 2000? The researcher polls people of particular professions to conduct the survey, and the possibility of these people being the same establishes if their mindsets have change or remained the same over a certain period of time.

Response Paper for The Responsible Electorate The essay The Responsible Electorate was written by V. O. Key Jr. in about the relationship between politicians and voters. Throughout his essay he indicates this relationship as an echo chamber. He also mentions that political candidates and scholars try to figure out why voters vote the way they do. The information found by surveys is used to improve political campaigns to increase the chances of a win for the candidates.

I think it is also worth noting that Green and Palmquist use the NES poll data in their study which bring us back to the first question which is how to accurately measure partisanship? If question asked by pools can heavily change the result of studies we need to know what question to ask when we are measuring short term variance and when we are measuring long term variance. I think the Gallup poll might be useful to measure the short term variance in macro partisanship and the NES and GSS poll might be effecting when it comes to long term shifts in partisanship. However these article failed to discuss the polls in general and find if the interviewed population is representative of the US population. Abramson and Ostrom also briefly talked about the effect telephone poll can have on polls result but it was discussed in depth. In last week Alan S. Gerber and Donald P. Green found positive effect of personal contract on voting. Doing interviews for polls might have better result than telephone

To begin refining the research question the intended demographic must be conceptualized. The focused population will be Ontario residents. As the research questions pertains to voting in elections the sample must be individuals that are eligible to vote. This excludes anyone that

I strongly agree with all of the statements that I stated above. If the surveys had only been composed of those questions, the results have been the same to me. Honestly I don't know why but these statement seems like common sense to me to strongly

Voter turnout, as well as election results, depend upon and are effected by several different factors. Everything from family status to beliefs about abortion can determine how a person will vote. In my presentation, however, I focused on three aspects that effect voter turnout and elections. I found, in my research, that a voter's age, sex and party identification greatly factor into how a person will cast his or her vote.