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Are YOU a "Likely Voter" ??
Posted by Pile
(9451 views)      [E-Mail link]
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[Polls]
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| If you pay attention, you'll see in almost all polls shown in the media today, in fine print or on television it will say something like "in a poll of likely voters". This is an interesting statistical "gimmick" used by the polling companies that allows them to fudge the stats. Depending upon which polling organization the definition of "likely voters" varies dramatically. Read on for more details. |
In a classic example an article on Findlaw sums up the issue of the significance of the 'likely voter' definition.
Furthermore, many organizations are calling FOUL on the misleading polling methods used by big media.
To some polling organizations such as Gallup, if in the course of the poll the respondant doesn't identify they know where their polling place is, they're not considered a likely voter (even if they intend to find out before the election). Some polling companies, such as those used by CNN and USA Today have been using an insideous formula which is based on the premise that the same democraphic makeup of people who voted in 2000 will vote in 2004, that is, a vast majority of republicans over democrats and independants, so they toss out all non-republican poll results until they achieve the percentage they are shooting for and *surprise* Bush is ahead in the polls even though he looked like an idiot on the debate. Every media outlet has their own polling methods but if there's one thing common to almost all, they a) completely ignore almost all first-time voters, and b) they don't call people on cell phones, so if you don't have a land line, you're not even part of the pool from which they poll. So if you're among those that believe there will be a dramatically higher voter turnout this year, you can almost be certain the end results will be dramatically different than what the mainstream media is reflecting in their polls.
The irony is that the mainstream media are well aware the voter turnout is likely to be much different, and the $64 million dollar question is why are they using polling methodology that's likely to not be valid? |
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