Reply #81: The text that you bolded in this response is a statement -- [View All]

[Time for change]

not an argument.

I don't know who those 6 people are, and that's not the point. I judge what people have to say on the basis of what they say, not who they are.

They make a whole bunch of statements to the effect that exit polls are not designed to assess who won an election. Well then, what is their purpose? To assess what demographic groups voted for which candidates? They can assess what percent of people who attend church once a week (which is a smaller sample than the total population) voted for which candidates, but not what percent of the whole population vote for the candidates?

I'd like to ask to some questions, to see where you're coming from on this:

1. Do you believe that the purpose of pre-election polls is to predict the winner of the election?

2. Do you believe that pre-election polls are better at predicting the winner of an election better than exit polls?

3. If your answer to #2 is yes, then please see my post # 36, where I explain why exit polls are much better at predicting than pre-election polls, and tell me if you disagree with any of those points, and name just one advantage that a pre-election poll has over an election poll for that purpose.

And as far as whatever Mitofski and Lenski have said, they have repeatedly refused to officially release the results of their polls (although these have been leaked) or any detailed explanation of their interpretation of them, so I don't really think that they are part of this argument. As Dr. Freeman says, "With all due respect to the integrity and professional competence of Messrs. Lenski and Mitofsky, even Nobel Laureates subject their conclusions to review".

What Dr. Freeman does not say, but which I will add here, is that Mitofsky and Lenski owe their livelihood to the MSM and might be reluctant to say anything that the MSM would not want them to say.