Reliability And Accuracy Of Polls

While the majority claim that taking a step to deport people is cruel and inconsistent with our legal value that undocumented immigrant strengthen our economy and country. Claim-makers use the polls because they offer feedback at the early stages in the process and to determine whether their claim is effective or not. Policymakers often base their decision on what the polls say. Public opinion overall there is little support to deport all those undocumented immigrants in the U.S. nonetheless survey in the past have found great support for building a barrier along the Mexican border and change the constitution. This form of public- opinion is often viewed as inaccurate because polls are formalized situation in which people know they are being solicited for analysis and this can affect what they are willing to

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.

Best starts out the chapter explaining how public opinion is measured, Best specifically uses public polling as a means to measure public opinion (166-167). Best mentions that a small amount of people in a specific population, known as a sample, have their opinions taken in a poll format. Those polls’ results are then used to generalize the whole population (167).

Questionnaires are “a series of questions asked to individuals to obtain statistically useful information about a given topic” (Bryant, L, 2014). There are different types of questionnaires that include face to face, phone, post and online.

Overall, The Marist Poll, has a respectable reputation. It was founded in 1978, and is considered the “first college based research center to include undergraduates in conducting survey research” (Marist 2017). Accordingly, Marist College places a strong emphasis on academic led-research. Several news networks such as CNN, FOX, and NBC have cited The Marist Poll in their articles. Additionally, FiveThirtyEight has given Marist College polling an “A” grade for its accuracy (Nate Silver 538). Marist does not have a history of partisan or ideological bias. However, as with any polling entity, their results should be analyzed assiduously.

In “Stop the Polling Insanity,” an op-ed article published in The New York Times, Norman J. Ornstein (Resident Scholar at the American Enterprise Institute) and Alan I. Abramowitz (Professor of Political Science at Emory), argues why there are so many different tracking polls. The biggest reason is because this election has controversial candidates and the more shocking polls gain an intense following. This is a great time for the news; however as a voter, one must be careful of the source chosen.

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

A common mistake that occurs during past research is the assumption that partisan media effects are static. This however, is not the case. The article points towards an evolving and dynamic media effects during election cycles. To

This then leads into what is the sample size is too small and is not a great representation of the overall population. If the sample size is too small, it could lead to selection bias which is when the sample does a terrible job representing the actual ideologies of the population in that area. Push polling, which is asking questions in a way that gives the pollster the answer that is being sought out, is often another technique used to potentially skew the outcome. All of these are factors that could potentially be important when it comes to the outcome of the polls. Make sure to keep in mind that whenever a poll is taken there is always a way that someone/something can skew it to their

The people of my personal and profession associations do not consider polls and would not participate in any polling. They are individuals that will not be swayed by information they cannot dissect to glean the truth or value of the claims. Individuality requires freedom of the opinions of others. Personal consideration of the facts permits me to formulate my personal beliefs.

In the New York Times article “What’s the Matter With Polling?” public policy and political science professor Cliff Zukin argues that polls and pollsters have grown to be unreliable due to the growth of cellphones and the decline in people willing to answer surveys. Since a higher percentage of people have acquired and use cellphones more than landlines in the past decade and the 1991 Telephone Consumer Protection Act has been interpreted to prohibit the calling of cellphones through automatic dialers, survey companies have to devote more money, time, and resources to contacting potential participants. The rapidly declining response rate has also increased the risk of surveys failing to reflect public opinion, and therefore increase the number of failed predictions. Although conducting polls on the Internet is cheaper, “coverage error” is prominent, and Internet use correlates inversely with age and voting habits, making it even more difficult to predict the outcome of elections. Beyond this, as Zukin illustrates, it is nearly impossible to figure out how to draw a representative sample of Internet users.

It seems to me that we are just fascinated with polls. That almost everything is based on a poll, and they often base their opinions and views of the world on their results. Politicians do the same, but to a much greater extent. Most leaders will try to base their decisions largely on their poll numbers. I think that it is not right for them to base everything off poll. Polls are a way to make the voice of the individual citizen heard. Unfortunately, it is not simple. That reason is be causes that polls are not that accurate or reliable for many reasons. Some of those reasons are that; the samples are too small to represent the population, the result from the polls can be presented in a way that misleads many people, the result of the polls

Survey: a form of research that gathers information about attitudes or behaviors through the answers that people give to questions.

„h 80% believe that sensational stories get lots of news coverage because they are exciting, not because they are important.

In survey method research, participants answer questions administered through interviews or questionnaires. After participants answer the questions, researchers describe the responses given. In order for the survey to be both reliable and valid it is important that the questions are constructed properly. Questions should be written so they are clear and easy to comprehend.