[lbo-talk] Can Kerry Make it?

[Wojtek Sokolowski]

Doug:
> There's some buzz about using registration lists, but pollsters just
> dial up people randomly and trust them to answer correctly on their
> registration status and intentions. It may be that their likely voter
> filters are especially inaccurate with all these new hopped-up voters
> on the rolls.

A sample of 600-900 is very likely to under-represent or even miss the newly
registered voters, which is a relatively small group.  To capture that
sub-population they would need to oversample and then weight, but to do that
they would need to apriori identify the newly registered voters and draw a
larger sample - neither of which seems to be happening.  Hence the buzz does
not sound very convincing. 

 One of several reasons I would like to see Kerry winning by a landslide is
to see all those spin doctors being plainly wrong and running with their
tails between their legs.  I am not above such schadenfreude.  

Wojtek