this post was submitted on 28 Jul 2024
980 points (98.1% liked)

politics

19120 readers
3150 users here now

Welcome to the discussion of US Politics!

Rules:

  1. Post only links to articles, Title must fairly describe link contents. If your title differs from the site’s, it should only be to add context or be more descriptive. Do not post entire articles in the body or in the comments.

Links must be to the original source, not an aggregator like Google Amp, MSN, or Yahoo.

Example:

  1. Articles must be relevant to politics. Links must be to quality and original content. Articles should be worth reading. Clickbait, stub articles, and rehosted or stolen content are not allowed. Check your source for Reliability and Bias here.
  2. Be civil, No violations of TOS. It’s OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It’s NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
  3. No memes, trolling, or low-effort comments. Reposts, misinformation, off-topic, trolling, or offensive. Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.
  4. Vote based on comment quality, not agreement. This community aims to foster discussion; please reward people for putting effort into articulating their viewpoint, even if you disagree with it.
  5. No hate speech, slurs, celebrating death, advocating violence, or abusive language. This will result in a ban. Usernames containing racist, or inappropriate slurs will be banned without warning

We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.

All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.

That's all the rules!

Civic Links

Register To Vote

Citizenship Resource Center

Congressional Awards Program

Federal Government Agencies

Library of Congress Legislative Resources

The White House

U.S. House of Representatives

U.S. Senate

Partnered Communities:

News

World News

Business News

Political Discussion

Ask Politics

Military News

Global Politics

Moderate Politics

Progressive Politics

UK Politics

Canadian Politics

Australian Politics

New Zealand Politics

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 10 points 3 months ago (2 children)

Recognize that the data may be flawed. Polling is incredibly accurate, but only if you survey a simple random sample. And that is very difficult to do. It introduces a lot of difficulty in getting right answers. Some polling methodologies will try to manipulate the raw data and weight it to try and make it representative, but that introduces a whole host of problems.

2016 and 2020 under predicted Trump's popularity for instance, while 2022 under predicted Democrats' popularity. We don't know what the situation now.

Polls are still useful, but you have to treat them with a grain of salt. What tends to be more accurate is changes within the same polling group over time.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago

Problem is that polling would have to have all the exact same behaviors as an actual election

  • The ballot boxes don't come to the people, the people opt to go to the ballot boxes. So cold calling/mailing people means you've changed the engagement to include people that wouldn't actually go out to vote. Some try to measure likelihood to vote, but if the reason is 'laziness', a lot of people are unlikely to admit they won't vote.
  • Some population sees the polls as a strategic tool, and may modify their participation to advance what they think their outcome needs. Declare support for the opposing candidate to put the fear of losing into like-minded voters, for example.
  • People know the polls don't actually decide anything, so even if they will vote, they may dismiss polls as a waste of their time. Or even being distrustful of the agenda behind the poll and decline to participate thinking that works best to undermine potentially malicious polling
  • People have more confidence in the ballot being secret than polling. If someone thinks their answer will be seen/overheard by a spouse, that may change their tune. If someone thinks something vile would actually be in their benefit, they may be reluctant to admit that, but happy to act on it at the ballot box.

Now polls are better than "gut feelings" or "this person posted to social media their gut feelings", but the ultimate answer is we have no way of accurate prediction, so don't be encouraged or discouraged too much and just go vote.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago (2 children)

Polling is not an inferior source to your gut feelings.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 3 months ago (1 children)

You need to look at the actual statistical science. If you find 45% support for something, but there's a 3% margin of error with a 95% conference interval, then there's a 95% chance that the true value is anywhere from 42-48%. And that's with a perfect, simple random sample.

It has its uses, but you have to be aware of its limitations and caveats.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 3 months ago (1 children)

But whats the interval on shit you just make up? Probably not as good a source as the polling.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Are you just arguing for the sake of arguing? I'm saying that even a perfect sample will not necessarily lead to an accurate conclusion, and having a perfect sample is incredibly difficult on top of that.

Now factor in a major event occurring, and people's opinions and thoughts being in flux. To properly gauge mood, you need to give people time to process -- hence why immediate polling is not helpful.

You do realize that the person you originally responded to was saying that polls probably aren't helpful right now, not that polls are universally useless?

[–] [email protected] 0 points 3 months ago

Check the context of this thread. Then my words will make more sense and your point reveals itself to be coping to reaffirm unscientific bias.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 3 months ago

Maybe not your gut feelings.