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"The problem is that there's no real way of predicting who pollsters should be interviewing. That isn't a problem. That's why random sampling and confidence in
by lostcolony 6y ago
"The problem is that there's no real way of predicting who pollsters should be interviewing.
That isn't a problem. That's why random sampling and confidence intervals exist.
"Polls tend to focus on 'likely voters'" - no they don't. They randomly sample, and then ask people whether they plan to vote or not; they still get, and report, the numbers amongst registered voters, vs likely (as defined however) voters.
- SpicyLemonZest 6y agoThey sample as randomly as they can, but that's not very random, because a non-random subset of the people they call don't want to talk to them. If you've ever seen a polling organization discuss "weighting", this problem is what they're talking about - they have to adjust the raw poll results based on their estimates of how response rates were biased, or they'll get answers that they know are wrong.
- lostcolony 6y agoWhich is a different problem than "who pollsters should be interviewing", which is what I was responding to.