From: J056600@LMSC5.IS.LMSC.LOCKHEED.COM
Subject: Re: Polling errors
Organization: Lockheed Missiles & Space Company, Inc.
Date: Tue, 6 Oct 92 15:34:44 GMT

In <1992Oct6.004331.3493@pasteur.Berkeley.EDU>, Adam L. Schwartz writes:

>In article <Bvns4C.HJz@apollo.hp.com> nelson_p@apollo.hp.com (Peter Nelson) wri
>>
>>The flaw in this has already been explained:  The typical margin of
>>error in a major poll is 3-5%, which is way over the % of the voters
>>who have voted for the L.P. in any presidential campaign, so there's
>>simply no rational reason for any polling company to include them.

That should change this year.  The LP has seen a record amount of interest--
even more than in 1980.  Any third-party or independent alternative will get
more interest in bad economic times--like 1980 and 1992.  Unlike 1980, this is
being done without a VP candidate spending several million dollars of their
own money.  The efforts of the 1992 LP have been a grassroots effort.

I'm hoping to see 3% vote for Marrou.  In some states, even 5% wouldn't be
unheard of--especially with the disgust most people have for *all* of the
other candidates (including Perot).  From what I've seen, it's reachable,
I'm not expecting it.

>I believe this is an overly simplistic application of statistics.  There are a
>lot of assumptions that go behind calculating the margin of error (typically
>the margin of error corresponds the 95% confidence level in a statistic and
>is computed as 1/sqrt(n) where n is number of people polled).

>Let's say 1% of people polled would vote Libertarian.  To say that there is a
>3-5% polling error is ludicrous because that would mean that it is possibe for
>-4% of the populace to vote Libertarian.  The problem has something to do with
>the underlying probability distribution of the sampling process which makes mar
>of error calculations unrealiable at the extremes. Intuitively, if 1000 people
>polled and 10 say they would vote Libertarian I would say that more then 1% of
>the people are going to vote Libertarian.

Some of the Libertarians I know don't want people to know what they are.  This
does have some validity; how much I don't know.  Remember the recent British
elections?  Polls showed Labor with a lead over the Tories only days before the
election.  Apparently, people wanted to publicly state that they were for Labor
while they privately and quietly voted for the Conservatives.  How else could
every poll indicate a Labor victory when they lost by 20%?

A recent CompuServe poll had, at the time I saw it, 11% of respondents classify
themselves as Libertarians and 6% indicated that they would vote for Marrou
(I don't claim that 11% are Libertarians.  Also, kudos to CI$ for listing
Marrou and the Libertarians by name and not as a part of "Other").

Polls usually indicate a more politically correct populace than private ballots
do.  For example, despite about 73% of Americans describing themselves as
"pro-choice," abortion measures on the ballots usually limp to victory with a
50-55% vote.  Of course, much of the poll results are dependent on how you ask
the question.  Consider the following "pro-choice" and "pro-life" questions:
   * Do you favor *banning* abortion for *any* reason?
   * Do you favor *federally funded* abortion *on demand*?
Most Americans can honestly answer "no" to both questions--making them both
pro-life AND pro-choice.  Polls are usually worded in a way that gets the
desired response.  That's why I put little credence in them.

But we digress.

>(Caveat: my statistics is rusty so I could be wrong.  But give it some thought.
Tim Irvin   j056600@lmsc5.is.lmsc.lockheed.com
****************************************************************************
Andre Marrou--Libertarian for President--for the ENTIRE Bill of Rights
                                         (including the 2nd Amendment)!

Newsgroups: talk.politics.guns