polls

Max Sawicky sawicky at epinet.org
Thu Sep 21 10:55:49 PDT 2000


-----Original Message----- From: owner-lbo-talk at lists.panix.com [mailto:owner-lbo-talk at lists.panix.com]On Behalf Of Doug Henwood Sent: Thursday, September 21, 2000 10:44 AM To: lbo-talk Subject: polls

[Brad DeLong asked the other day what's up with the Voter.com poll, which is the only major one now showing W in the lead. Here's an answer, via the AAPOR list.]

Washington Post - September 20, 2000

The Poll Less Traveled

By Richard Morin and Claudia Deane Washington Post Staff Writers Wednesday, September 20, 2000

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I . . . took the one less traveled by - Robert Frost

Diverging roads make for good poetry. But diverging tracks make for . . . Goeas and Lake adjust, or "weight," their survey results so that 35 percent of their tweaked sample are Democrats and 35 percent are Republicans.

Cool. You can get any result you want, just be adjusting the weights.

. . . "It's a concern," says Hugick. But "I've been investigating these polls exhaustively since the spring. . . . When we see a new poll, and it looks different than some others I would expect us to be similar to, I'm going to make sure there's no [problem] in our data. And then just simply, if it looks right, you gotta go with it."

And if it doesn't look right, see above.

This guy must have been trained as an empirical economist.

mbs



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