The Reliability Of Polls

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

Judy Woodruff Co-Anchor and Managing editor for PBS News covers a story by “The Atlantic,” that goes over the disadvantages of early polling by explaining that potential voters have been inundated with a non-stop wave of opinion polls and isn’t always a good predictor of the eventual nominees. Furthermore, persuasion comes in different

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.

Conducting national exit polls is an enormous undertaking, requiring as long as two years to implement. The goal of the process is to collect information on a subset of voters that can be projected to the entire active electorate with a high degree of confidence. Numerous obstacles, though, stand in the way, threatening to undermine the effort and bias the results. Exit polls, like most surveys, unfold in four distinct but often overlapping stages / Research-ers usually begin by developing procedures for drawing a probabilistic sample of voters whose responses can be inferred to the active electorate with a high degree of confidence. They develop a questionnaire, capable of both describing the types of voters participating in an election as well as offering insights into the reasoning behind their choices. Interviewers are trained and eventually employed to disseminate the questionnaires to and collect them from sampled voters on Election Day. The process concludes with the integration of voters’ responses into a data set for analysis. The specific procedures used for each stage vary by polling organization; therefore, I focus my discussion on those procedures developed by Warren Mitofsky, Murray Edelman, and their col¬leagues at CBS and used by the polling units employed by the network consortium to conduct the national exit polls.

1. Explain the role of polls in understanding public opinion. Do you think polls are helpful for explaining public opinion? Why or why not?

Before I go into answering the questions directly, it should be understood that public opinion polls have both flaws and encouraging data. Pubic opinion polls if done appropriately will give the general feel of how the population is feeling towards an issue. It all depends on whether the sampling is comparative to the population, for example if you have a population of One-Hundred Thousand and you only sample one hundred, the results will not be as accurate if the sampling size was bigger. Also, the person conducting the interviews of these opinion polls must not be biased to one side or the other. They must remain centered on the subject and not influence the answers that are given. Asking specific questions about real issues can result is promising polling data. Opinion polls should be used to collect data, and must also be used in a way that reflects accurate data. By not having accurate data that can lead to bad decision making or lead to mistrust among the community and the police departments. One of the biggest missuses of opinion polls was in the presidential election in the 1948 were the Chicago Daily Tribune printed election results on bad opinion polling and looked foolish for doing so. So these polls should be used with caution and constructed in a way that does not allow for misrepresentation of the publics true views as it has in the past.

The election season is a season full of polls, predictions, and forecasts. During this hectic period all media outlets compete to update polls and inform the American public on which candidate is leading. Polling is an aspect greatly used in the American media. We rely on polls to make predictions for everything that involves competition. Sports, politics, economics and many more fields use polls to make predictions about the future. As a society we trust polls and believe them as if they are certain and will predict the future without any error. In the 2016 Presidential elections, polls have failed immensely. Donald Trump came into Election Day with a minimal 15% chance of winning. Despite his minimal chances the next president of the free

A confidence interval can be seen when marginal error reports are received from an election poll (Mirabella, 2011). It is not possible to capture the votes of the entire population due to various reasons. I do agree that a large sample size is needed and most important in order to determine a true mean of the confidence interval. Inaccurate results can lead the polls to be less trustworthy for voters. This could have an effect on future sample sizes, as voters may not come out to

Phones continued to develop clearer signals and longer ranges. The first cell phone, produced in 1947, was the car phone. However, it only worked when driving on the highway between Boston and New York. In 1973, the first portable phone call was placed, and by 1991 mobile phones were available to the public. By 2001, these newly developed cell phones overshadowed payphones and were an integral part of American daily life.

Exit polls, like most surveys, unfold in four distinct but often overlapping stages / Research-ers usually begin by developing procedures for drawing a probabilistic sample of voters whose responses can be inferred to the active electorate with a high degree of confidence. They develop a questionnaire, capable of both describing the types of voters participating in an election as well as offering insights into the reasoning behind their choices. Interviewers are trained and eventually employed to disseminate the questionnaires to and collect them from sampled voters on Election Day. The process concludes with the integration of voters’ responses into a data set for analysis. The specific procedures used for each stage vary by polling organization; therefore, I focus my discussion on those procedures developed by Warren Mitofsky, Murray Edelman,

One thing that I found odd while researching for this paper is the variety of poll results across a small selection of sources. For instance, CNN posted a poll update in late January, stating that our President’s job approval ratings were at an all-time low at 36%. Underneath the large heading and introductory statement, they mentioned that the information was gathered by one national poll that was provided by one university. Should the findings of one poll, given by one university, be published as if they represent all of the American population’s views? Personally, I do not feel the need to pay attention to polls when it comes to national politics. I am generally distrusting of the agendas that many news outlets support when it comes to national polls, even though I still believe that polls aren’t entirely unnecessary. I fully support the idea of giving the public a way to compare views and express personal

On April 3rd, 1973, the very first cell phone call was made by a man named Martin Cooper. Martin was using a Motorola DynaTAC 8000x, or as most people know as the very first cell phone. At first glance the 8000x basically looked like some

First thing that could go wrong is selection bias. This is when the sample does not accurately reflect the population you are researching. An example of this would be if we only asked student who got an A if they loved this class. Another thing that can affect the reliability of a poll is the wording. An example of this would be if we asked our students “Did you love or hate your American National Government class?” This did not give an option of neither. Another thing that can make a poll unreliable is social desirability effect, this is when the person answering gives the pollster the answer they think the pollster wants. In our case this would be having you the Instructor ask the question to the students the day before our final exam. Many student will say they love it because they want to do well in the

This article was about polling. Polls tell us where people stand on issues, the public mood, record of popularity; approval of elected officials and identified the “likely voters”. The author specifically focuses on polling’s of election campaigns. He also looks at “private” polls. Since the 1950s, some candidates have been using polls in their campaigns. In one study of the congressional campaign of 1978, 74 percent of incumbents, 61 percent of challengers and 80 percent of open seat candidates have either “very much” or “quite a bit” used polling data. Before the 1970s, pollsters only provided an analysis of raw data with little to say about the strategic implications. The current age of modern polling had begun in 1979. Changes in technology

The election polls I trust must have a proven track record. We all recognize what is happening daily, that either encourages or discourages voters. The media is capable of reporting false information, it happens daily. The media reports a story centered toward the viewer, the goal of the media is to encourage individuals to view their story. Therefore we all must be careful when the media is present. Election polls that are centered around the media do not guarantee the voter the polls are correct. One must identify the election polls' track record. If the track record has been proven and has provided an accurate collection of data for many years (Election polling, 2015). Then one has provided an essential proven track record.