Will all the pollsters be discredited after this election ??

[kentuck]

Especially if they are way off in their predictions? They can say that they miscalculated the number of people with cell phones but that will still not restore their credibility. That could be one of the positives to come from this election. Or will one, like Zogby, get it right this time?

[LisaLynne]

1. That's going to be interesting, isn't it?

However, I have a feeling, even if they are proved to be incredibly off the mark, it will just slide.

[chookie]

2. Dear God: Rapture the "pundits"

Idiotic pollsters I can accommodate -- at a distance.

But what needs to be discredited and jettisoned is the idiotic pundit system of news. "Pundit" is a word that USED to mean someone with advanced knowledge in a subject -- now it means some big mouth who abuses the system to get a poorly earned paycheck and time in front of a camera. I really don't know how people can stand to watch and listen to them -- i find them absolutely odious. Traditional whores at least have a heart of gold -- but these shills are utterly meaningless.

Cable news is World Wrestling Federation in suits and pretensions of seriousness. Total gasbags, absolutely irrelevant. Increasingly understood by ordinary Americans to be a big part of the problem.

[autorank]

9. In defense of Mr. Vince McMahon...

The WWE (formerly WWF) is fake and Mr. McMahon tells everybody who has ears to hear that it's fake. He tells people he makes up the characters and story lines. He knows how every match ends. The wrestlers all cooperate and admit it's a show.

Unlike this honest PT Barnum, the media whores pretend like they are reporting news instead of acting out a pre ordained story line. The story lines come from Rupert, the new GE Chairman, or whoever the CEO happens to be.

I like Mr. McMahon a lot better than any news director or reporter.

As to a 'rapture,' you gave me an idea. The media whores should be evacuated from the planet in the same way the aliens took people in Forgotten, just wrenched into the sky at about 500 MPH.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

3. If They Are Incredibly Off The Mark It Will Be The First Time In Fifty

Years....


Most polls come within the Margin Of Error and that's all a poll can realistically claim to do.........

http://www.ncpp.org/1936-2000.htm

[Mr_Spock]

6. However!! Since the margin of error is BIGGER than the difference between

the candidates, the polls are completely and entirely useless in the last two elections. There is nothing that can be taken from the polls except longer term trends - that's it. How can you differentiate between candidates who in reality are running closer than the margin of error of the sampling? It's not possible - the error is exaggerated making people think they are seeing something where nothing exists.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

7. Because Of The M.O.E. Polls Are Less Useful In Tight Elections

but they do a nice job by letting us know it will be close..

The polls were erratic in 96 but the final polls were close to the actual results...

[Mr_Spock]

11. I see people here EVERY DAY trying to interpret results within MOE

It just doesn't make sense. I agree with both of you who replied that the polls show the race is close - OK fine with me. A close race also makes those few results that are outside the MOE of all the other polls seem to have more weight - but they are also treated with more suspicion as well. If it turns out the one or two that were off were incorrect, those people should be prosecuted for electioneering - that is the danger in having polls in a tie race. I am totally disgusted with the variation that I see from day to day and the attempt by so many to find significance in the daily numbers - it's insane and wrong. I would prefer NOT to know anything before election day - it just serves to annoy me and wonder if there is any electioneering going on in any of the polls. Why should we trust these people, they are no smarter than you or I from what I can determine.

[Freddie Stubbs]

10. The polls are useful

in showing that the election is close. If you are looking for polls to act as a crystal ball in close race, they will be of little help. But they can predict results when the results are not close. Just look at the results of the state primaries this year and the polls that directly preceeded each of them.

[Mr_Spock]

4. How can they actually get it right with all the variation?

People aren't really changing their minds as often as the polls might suggest. Some polls might get lucky and be close just before election day, but does that mean they are better than another? I think their ideas on samples size, demographics and party affiliation are hocus-pocus black-magic with no rhyme or reason. But that is just my humble opinion...

[enigmatic]

5. In a way...

What they will have to do in order to continue is start polling those w/ cell phones; they have to or go down the tubes..

[punpirate]

8. My opinion is that all pollsters...

... are using outdated methodology with regard to the number of people sampled. In the `50s, when the population was nominally half of what it is now, the average sample per poll was virtually the same as it is now. That has less effect in the big, predictable states, but has greater ramifications in the states with much smaller populations.

As well, the inability of polling to compensate for new technologies (internet, cellphones) make current assessments less accurate than they were four or five decades ago. And, pollsters are trying to make do with less, as are most American businesses today, so the polling itself is more hurried.

Any pollster who adjusts his rates to enable polls with a sample of 2500 or more, and can reduce his margin of error to 1% will get the business. Those still trying to measure close elections with significantly larger margins of error will likely fall by the wayside.

[Rjnerd]

12. Faux news doesn't really want honest polls

Gallup was off by significantly more than the margin of error in 2000 (13% in a 3% margin poll), but since the name still has some value with the public, as long as they give Faux something they can scream about, they will continue to pay for them. (the public tend to forget how far off they were the last time, they just know that Gallup "invented" polling)

The conventional media want a horse race, with neck and neck action, and if possible, frequent changes of lead. Faux wants something that makes their viewer think the "good" guy is winning. An inaccurate (faux) or unstable (the others) poll is the result they would like, and the public pollsters are delivering.

[tritsofme]

13. Gallup's final poll was off by 2% not 13

Opinion Dynamics that does polling for Faux last poll in 2000 was 43-43.

Its interesting to look at Opinion/Dynamics polls because they do not push uncommitted voters very hard at all.

[Rowdyboy]

14. Zogby will again be closest...Ipsos/Harris/Quinippiac next

then Rasmussen, CBS/NBC/Mason-Dixon, and Faux, with CNN-Gallup and SurveyUSA bringing up the rear...