Do all these contradicting political polls mean anything to anyone?
Are you registered to vote? A lot of polls only talk to registered voters. Did you vote in the last election? Some polls only talk to registered voters who voted in the last election. . Also, since respondents are selected randomly, a certain portion of the population will never be polled. So far, you’ve been lucky. These things take a long time, and can be annoying, when you’re trying to cook dinner, which is usually when they catch you. . I would stop complaining if I were you. Once the pollsters catch you, they won’t let you go! . The other thing, which may explain contradictory polls, is that a lot of polls are run by the candidates themselves. So the method of polling, the way the sample is selected, and the wording of the questions can cause polls to come up with vastly different results. Some polls are really designed to pursuade you to vote for someone, instead of asking you who you support. . In the end, the major polling organizations want to get it right. Their reputations d
I guess they must mean something to someone because the keep doing them. But like any statistical analysis, the results are dependent on the quality of the data gathering and interpretation. Garbage in, garbage out, as they say. We’ve been solicited for a number of polls. What usually happens is the question is vague or asked in a way that’s open to interpretation and leaves you no option to give a response that will be tabulated in a way that reflects your actual opinion. If you ask the pollers to clarify or try to tell them the difficulty you’re having answering the question as asked, all they can say is they’re hired to read the questions and take down your answers. They can’t say anything else. We all know a given set of statistics can be interpreted to support polar opposite positions. That coupled with the unavoidable biases in the questions make me take all poll results with a grain of salt.
