Look at that, Overtime Politics caught just making shit up in their "polls"
Last edited Thu Jan 7, 2016, 01:50 AM - Edit history (1)
I posted about this outfit before at:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/1251951829
Basically, they're not real pollsters but they're posting interesting results from random dialing people in states. Well, I'm not even sure they're doing that, anymore.
See, the creator decided to start collecting demographic information for his "polls" beginning with the new year.
The first to come out was Michigan. GDP regular Robbins was so good as to immortalize the results in the Bernie group here:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/128093066
Or you can see the PDF of the original results here:
http://docdro.id/D4bnL2I
I saw the results and went to Overtime and saved a copy of the PDF for a more in depth analysis I've been working on for the past two days. Simply put, the math for their results didn't work. They're actually impossible to obtain based on the demographics given.
But a funny thing happened just now before I started writing up the math analysis showing results are being fabricated. Overtime Politics quietly changed the demographic breakdowns. And not just a little but a lot. In other words, the person realized the first results were impossible, so he went and tweaked them. You don't even have to take my word for it, in the Sanders Group thread above, Robbins provided the demographic breakdown. If you then follow the link he posted to Overtime, you'll see the breakdowns have all changed:
Let's start with the most minor changes:
Category HRC/BS/MOM/Unknown (Total)
Original
Male 43/42/3/10 (98)
Female 52/37/1/9 (99)
Revised
Male 43/43/4/11 (101)
Female 52/38/1/10 (101)
So, a little change. Unusual, but whatever. So let's get to the good stuff:
Original
White 41/43/4/12 (100)
Black 63/31/2/4 (100)
Hispanic 48/40/1/11 (100)
Asian 45/44/1/10 (100)
Nat. Am. 44/42/1/13 (100)
Now there is a huge number of problems with these results, which was going to be the focus of my post just a few minutes ago. However, I don't need to do that thanks to the idiot(s) at Overtime just going in and changing the data. One thing I will highlight is that rounding error says you should not always see totals at exactly 100%. Every subcategory other than male and female in the original results totaled exactly 100%. Every income bracket, every ethnicity bracket and every age bracket. Quite literally it is impossible with the sample size given.
By the same token, if O'Malley only got 10 responses and only accounts for 2% of the total, there is literally no way he can be above zero in every sub-demographic.
But both of these points were apparently realized, so they went and edited:
Revised
White 41/43/3/12 (99)
Black 62/32/1/5 (100)
Hispanic 49/37/0/12 (98)
Asian 49/43/0/6 (98)
Nat. Am. 49/49/0/12 (110!)
So where to start. How about Clinton mysteriously gaining 4 points in Asian support? How about the Hispanic, Asian and Native American O'Malley supporters disappearing? How about Clinton getting 5 extra points in Native American and Bernie getting 7?
They're simply making shit up.
Oh, and the typo in Native American support equaling out to 110%? That's really damning as well. That means someone was manually inputting values, as opposed to them being formulaic from a respondents tabulation. And someone apparently forgot to carry the one.
I could go on, but you'll have to take my word for it that the same thing happened for age and income.
You can see the revised Overtime Politics results here:
http://overtimepolitics.com/hillary-clinton-leads-bernie-sanders-by-7-points-in-michigan-47-40/
In conclusion, Overtime Politics makes numbers up and now I even doubt if they call anyone at all. Their "polls" are bullshit of the highest order.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/1251979411
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