Posted on 10/16/2016 8:30:15 PM PDT by Helicondelta
Only polls conducted online correctly foretold that Brexit was a real possibility, and five other things we learned about opinion polling from the EU Referendum
...
THE ONLINE POLLS WERE RIGHT (even though our last one wasn't)
Every other source of information suggested that a victory for Remain was a done deal - only the online polls revealed the true state of the race. The real story of this campaign is that not enough attention was paid to good polls, not the reverse.
...
THE BETTING MARKETS KNOW NOTHING
Throughout the campaign, the betting markets showed huge confidence in a Remain victory – odds on Brexit were often as long as 5:1, including on the day of the vote when at one point they hit 16:1.
...
ONLINE POLLS ARE MORE ACCURATE THAN PHONE POLLS
Finally, this controversy can now be settled once and for all. Throughout the campaign the telephone polls showed Remain comfortably ahead, sometimes by as much as 18 points, narrowing to an average 2.7% Remain lead over the final four weeks. The online polls showed Leave ahead more often than Remain, with an average lead for Leave of 1.8% over the same period.
It makes perfect sense – why would you answer a survey if a stranger calls you on the telephone? We know that as few as 5% of people do, and the number is getting smaller every day. Online polls are quick and convenient to take part in and you are paid to take part – that is why a more representative group of people is happy to answer them.
(Excerpt) Read more at yougov.co.uk ...
Maybe Mr. Trump could conduct an online poll ?
I haven’t had time to read the full article yet, but I can add that Yougov actually a couple of times towards the end of the campaign ran paralell on-line and phone polls and those polls showed diametrically opposite results. Telephone polls showed a win for Remain and the online polls for Brexit.
The result appears at odds with the often stated claim that younger people were inclined to vote Remain. The only way to reconcile these results is that you had a large group of voters and more on the Brexit side that refused to answer polls.
I have written about this several times here on FR and that is one of the reasons (not the only one!) why one must be very wary of any polling results in the present climate.
It will boggle the minds of everyone who’s ever taken a statistics class, but nonprobability polling is the future. Conventional (probability) polling rests on the assumption that a representative sample can allow estimation of the population. Nnonprobability surveys, which do not rely on random sampling and instead recruit through ads, pop-up solicitations and other approaches.
In a simple sense, consider what we see when Donald Trump gets 80% of the vote on the Drudge Report debate polls. The enthusiasm we show in these “non scientific” suveys is still a valid indication of public opinion. As is the fact that Democrats do not vote for Hillary in anywhere near the same way.
One weakness of the "betting market" is that someone with money can use it as a push poll: they put a lot of money on the side they want to win in order to change the odds and capture the press narrative.
1) Betting sites have a vested interest in publishing disinformation and encouraging more wagers on the likely looser.
2) Polls—robocalls especially—ass/u/me that the respondents are honest with no mechanism for verificaiton.
Last week I was a 20-something black woman who is supporting Trump, opposed to recreational weed, and favoring existing gun laws.
>Conventional (probability) polling rests on the assumption that a representative sample can allow estimation of the population
There’s nothing wrong with the math; the problem is that current polling, as this article shows, does not _get_ a representative sample! Current methods only get the people who own land lines; are near them when pollsters call (often mid-day); and are willing to endure the poll.
That’s on top of any polling bias wherein companies ‘adjust’ the results to match a prior turnout or defuse a result they’re not paid to obtain.
Remember Drudge’s online Polling all throuout the Primary?
Had TRUMP up big just exactly what he did in most States! =)
>Remember Drudge’s online Polling all throuout the Primary?
Yes.
>Had TRUMP up big just exactly what he did in most States! =)
I’m sure “people who participate in online polls” is more representative of everyone than “people with landlines who answer them mid-day and have half an hour to waste answering leading questions.”
However, as we saw last week, many online polls (including Drudge) can be vulnerable to multiple voting; we saw the Dims dump in 100k robo-votes on Drudge in the span of about five minutes. So, while better, definitely not perfect.
Look the opposing side (Media, Liberals, Govt types) think that they know better. They believe that they have the scope.
Usually I would laugh at them - but I am scarred by Romney election - I still don’t understand how BO won - there was some fraud but there were a ton of folks that just wanted to vote for him
It’s also why Trump does well with Rasmussen. It’s automated with no live person.
And if they do, they tend to give a politically correct answer fearing for their jobs, their homes and their social lives. It is the same thing here in the US.
I know the phone polls can be biased. They ask questions that are so convoluted that the default answer is the “yes” they want. In other cases, they ask questions and if you answer as a conservative, they sometimes hang up on you.
There are ways to correct for that, but they are complex and you can add a lot of error to the result.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.