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>On Thu, 28 Oct 2004, Michael Pollak wrote:
>
>> This shows these guys aren't even trying to account for what's going on.
>> They're in full CYA mode. The last presidential election was notable for
>> its unrandom error: 85% of the polls called it for Bush and Gore won.
>
>I have my criticisms of the pollsters, but this is not a reasonable
>assessment. Almost all the polls Doug posted earlier did not "call
>it for Bush"; the difference in the sample percentages for B & G
>were within the margin of error for the poll. --In other words,
>the poll results were consistent with the voting outcome, as
>precisely as we can measure with these polls. You're assuming
>a higher level of accuracy than the polls can provide.
But out of 15 major polls, 11 called it for Bush, 2 were tied, and 2 called it for Gore. Of course anything's possible, but that looks like a systematic, and not a random, error.
And the margin of error is a 95% confidence interval, right? That means that a 2 point lead has something like a 66% probability of measuring an actual lead, right?
Doug