That’s my new bumper sticker:
ROCK THE VOTE, LIE TO POLLSTERS
I AM one of the 9%...but I ALWAYS lie. Pollsters are a blight on our political system. Only good for the finger in the air politicians or news media. Neither group curry’s much favor with me.
Yesterday evening on the front page of the Columbus Dispatch were the results of their latest Ohio polling, thru Sept 29th. The results were 51/O 42/R.
After I puked a little in my mouth, I began to read the breakdown, methods etc.
The poll was registered voters and was mailed out across the state. 705 of the respondennts were D, 563 were R, 362 were I or other.
When they discussed potential errors, they described ‘Nonrespondent Bias’, as a possible source. What that means is the poll assumes that those who did not respond would have responded in the same way as those who did.
THE RESPONSE OF THIS POLL WAS 15%....that means 85% of the people who received this poll in the mail considered it junk mail. Now who do you think is more likely to toss aside political junk mail, especially from a liberal media outlet? Whose out there working and living and doesn’t have time to lay around the house and respond to polls?
This whole NONRESPONDENT BIAS is very intriguing to me. We don’t really hear much about it. I really think it could be one of the most overlooked errors in polling. JMHO
Next up will be data mining to estimate public opinion. it's feasible now and you can't get away with not answering. All the pollsters need are some correlations and that's the end of polling as we know it.
BTW, that fall off to 9% this year ought to bring a chill to the Obama and Romney campaign gurus. That means they are flying blind ~
The big money guys contributing to these two ought to also feel a chill ~ the public has veered off into some other direction and left them behind. If you can't even find out what public opinion really is these days then how are you going to control it with advertising?