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Hello voters, Trace here for DNews.
In this election year with so much stock being put into what the polls say, it’s important
they’re as accurate as possible.
But depending on the poll the results could be a reflection of how the nation feels as
a whole, or a bunch of fringe supporters skewing the outcomes.
What’s the science behind designing a poll that will accurately predict how the country
will vote?
Obviously, no poll can get ahold of everyone in the country, otherwise our phones would
be ringing constantly.
Instead pollsters have to interview a relatively small number of people and extrapolate their
data from there -- they call this a sample, or N. Scientific polling organizations will
aim to survey 1,000 to 1,500 people.
Statistically, the result will almost always have a 3% margin of sampling error then meaning
that these people should be representative of the population’s attitudes give or take
3%.
They could survey more people, but after 1,000 people the margin of error doesn’t decrease
much.
To get the margin of error down to 1%, pollsters would have to survey 10,000 people.
At that point it’s not really worth the time or effort, not to mention money.
There are other kinds of errors that go unaccounted for, like errors in analysis -- where certain
assumptions the researchers make about how to handle their data turn out to be wrong
-- and the nonresponse error -- where people who support a candidate who’s behind are
less likely to respond, further skewing results.4,
Polling organizations like the Pew Research Center for example will find participants
by calling them, selecting the geographical area by area code and the next 5 digits of
a phone number.
Then they will randomly dialing the last two.
The phone numbers randomly selected from one area are supposed to be proportional to that
area’s share of phone numbers in the country.
The idea is to get totally random representatives from across the nation on the phone, though
with more people switching to cell phones it’s gotten a bit harder to pin down.
Getting them on the phone is the first step, but the researchers know they don’t have
an accurate sample just yet.
Older people are more likely to answer a landline, so the Pew Research center will ask for the
youngest male in the house half the time and the youngest female the other half.
If it’s a cell phone, yes, pollsters can (and do) call cell phones, they’ll just
make sure the person is over 18.
When it comes to election polling, they’ll also ask if the person they’re surveying
plans to vote; if you don’t plan to vote, your opinion doesn’t really matter -- at
least at least to the outcome of the election.
Then they’ll ask who they plan to vote for.
It’s important this question comes first, and that the order the candidates are listed
in is switched up.
Asking about policy questions first can make a participant realize they don’t actually
agree with a candidate.
Constantly listing one candidate first can also impact the survey, especially in primaries
where there can be several candidates and it’s hard to keep track of them over the
phone.
All these precautions are things online polls don’t do.
Their samples consist of just the website’s readership, which could skew to one area,
one age group, one political bias, or people who won’t even vote.
News organizations love to say, "our online poll shows ____."
But, their online poll isn't a representative sample, and doesn't actually, "show" anything,
except what the people who come to their website might think.
Sometimes political ads even masquerade as polls, asking questions about a candidate
in a negative way to sway opinion.
Because scientific polls strive to eliminate as many of these confounding factors as possible
they are much more reliable than online public surveys.
If you want to check out how well they perform, the National Council on Public Polls keeps
track of how accurate each poll was after every election.
You can check out their link in the description below.
In 2012 Pew predicted Obama would win 50% to 47%.
The final tally?
51 to 47.
We think we’re pretty special with our precious Democracy but it isn’t uniquely human.
Julian and I explore other species that vote here.
So even though open online polls are essentially meaningless, they promote audience engagement.
Do you think a poll is the best way to do that or is there a smarter way to get people
involved?