I don't believe the polls,do you?

[goclark]

Many of the polls are saying the race is "too close to call" or "Nader will be the deciding factor."

I don't believe any of this stuff. I believe the media/Gallup etc. is "Making IHOP" so that when Chimp wins we will think it was so close. They want to keep us tuned in to their pitter patter so that their ratings will stay up.

I have great faith in this country and I believe that those that were asleep are now wide awake, waking up or at least drowsy. No matter the state of awareness, the Chimp should be TOAST.

The media and Gallup are telling big fat lies!!!
IMO Kerry is leading by at least 7 pts.

What do you really think is happening?

[bluestateguy]

1. Close elections motivate people to vote

If it was understood that Kerry was leading some of his supporters might get lazy and not vote. The perception of a close election motivates people to vote.

[Sticky]

2. The Polls were completely wrong in Canada

Look at this article:

Results confound pollsters

Numbers meant little in the end
Were people lying to them?'


STEPHANIE LEVITZ
CANADIAN PRESS

OTTAWA—Canada's electorate appears to have confounded the pollsters.

Weeks of speculation, number crunching and supper-hour phone calls to more than 25,000 Canadians over the last five weeks meant little in the end as the Liberals beat projections that they were headed for a sound thrashing in the election.

"How come all the polls were wrong for so long?" asked political scientist Ned Franks after watching the results roll in.

"I bet you for the next 10 years political scientists and others will be scratching their heads."

Heading into the vote, two of Canada's leading pollsters had predicted about 32 per cent of Canadians would cast a ballot in favour of the Liberals, followed by 31 per cent voting for the Tories.

But as Liberal red washed across the country, it became evident that the numbers were simply wrong.

Rather than support for the Liberals "softening" in the Atlantic, as predicted by Ekos, the party actually picked up three more seats than it had in the previous election.

Donna Dasko, a pollster with Environics, faltered as she searched for ways to describe the Liberal comeback.

"For the Liberals to come back so strongly in the last few days is astonishing," she said.

"I've never seen anything like it."
More
http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1088460612364&call_pageid=968332188492&col=968793972154

[Nadienne]

7. How easy would it be to steal an election in Canada?

In the US, inaccurate poll results might be called upon to reinforce election results. If Bush & Co plan on stealing the election, they'll need to manufacture poll results that are in their favor.

But perhaps in Canada, polls were used to motivate people to vote, telling citizens that they're not going to get as many liberal seats unless they get out and vote...

[Moderator]

22. sweet_scotia

Per DU copyright rules
please post only four
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DU Moderator

[leftofthedial]

3. I believe the Democratic candidate

needs about 70% of the vote to tie and 75% to win.

The polls are marginally relevant but not a good predictor of the outcome. They are used as propaganda and their results are strongly influenced by the agendae of the pollsters.

[coloradodem2005]

8. I think that would be a little too obvious.

If people found out that the election was tampered with, they would go nuts. I believe they may try something but that might be a little too obvious.

[joefree1]

4. No VP and it's close?

I think Kerry is being very smart. I rather see him with slow strong push up in the polls. Wait until he announces his VP. Bush has been pulling every lever and photo op he can think of and still he's only even with Kerry. This is incredibly bad news for a incumbent president.

[goclark]

That is the coolest - Kick! n/t

[cmd]

5. I believe we need to work very hard.

It doesn't matter what the polls say. We have to work like we have never worked before. There is no margin that will be wide enough. Register non-voters, educate them and lead them to the polls. We can't stop until the last polling place closes on election day.

[goclark]

13. Good point!

It is probably good for Democrats to think that is close.
You are so right, we need to win by 99 percent of the vote in order to show the world that we will not let these evil bunch of BUSHLERS run our country! They are worse than HITLER.

[seabeyond]

6. i felt ashift a couple months ago

no, i dont believe the polls either. and intellectually i dont believe the polls. if you take all the factors of 2000. off clinton and people weary factor and the not thrilled with gore factor, bush foolin folksy charm and campassionate conservative bullshit and honesty crap, i look at the states now and see

a totally different world. he has repugs mad at him and not voting for him. there is a disgust and lack of respect. even the people on his side has the waeriness of him. too many more people are going to come out and vote. dems have found somewhat of a voice. though want to see more

i want that colorado seat for senate. he is beatable. he has a commercial out to coors a couple years ago, that is offensive to all women if they look. it is purely abut degradation. and any husband, should be pissed he did it cause it screws with their sunday sittin all day watching football pleasure that doenst need a bunch of tits to enjoy the show, lol lol

there is an orginization.

dean start ed and a bow and embrace to him. the ability to be the first to speak out

gosh another, (see just to many shifts for it to be what media says) which is another, media clearly be called out for their one sided reporting.

bush the savior, get that out, and his imploding. e verything the man has done has shown his incompetence. have seen such a pattern months ago, said doesnt matter what he is given, that could look to help him, it wont. he is self destructive in his incompetyence and arrogance oh the arrogance. and in his stupid. just plain ole stupid

and os much more

so i conclude, no i do not believe the polls

i do not fit what the media is saying who i am. they do not have even a kinda of handle on what is going on with the nation, let alone the world

[seabeyond]

10. gona go to my spiritual, lol

i dont hardly ever (always) do on this board.

when walking in purity the universe accomidates. it is when in battle and feeling the anxiety, fear that we know it is now walking in grace

it is so easy, that is the know of purity. look how simply it appears. simplicity is the key to if seeing correctly. just a saying out loud, just an embracing allows it to be

[tjwash]

9. Polls...

Have they ever been right?

[tom_paine]

11. Nop, not in the least. Imperial Amerikan information systems have been

Sovietized.

If I didn't believe Bolshevik Liars when they gave their Toilet Paper Production Figuers in 1978, why would I believe Bushevik Liars when doing the same?

They are the same kinds of people telling the samwe kinds of lies. Some shit never changes.

[cosmokramer]

12. Polls are almost never correct.

Still, we have to consider that the electorate doesn't see the information, or have the in depth attention span, of we who are political junkies--and 'we' are the minority in the great expanse of voters.

The GOP partisans will vote GOP. The Dem partisans will vote Dem. The indies and swing voters will vote, but their choice can change from day to day--and many of them are not paying any attention to what is happening in the world right now. Fact of the matter is, most of these 'federal election season' voters (those who typically vote only in presidential elections or congressional elections) don't vote with a solid knowledge of what is happening in the world. Some will vote solely on the 'fear factor' initiated by this administration. Some will vote against their own interests without even being fully aware that they are shooting themselves in the foot.

How many voters out there know that the No Child Left Behind Act has a provision that will withold federal education funds to public schools that refuse to allow military recruiters access to their student registry? Heck, I didn't know this until someone pointed it out to me last fall--and I have a teenage son! NCLB has a clause that is essentially the first step towards militarization of schools, and is a big, big deal. Yet, I suspect, less than .01% of voters KNOW this, and this is just an example of how uninformed the electorate can be on issues that are incredibly important.

So I have to disagree that those who are asleep will wake up in time. Many will 'follow the bouncing ball' of the media sing-a-long and vote how Fox News tells them to. I don't think it will be a landslide either way because some of those swing voters are waking up--we just have to hope that enough of them do to make a difference and get the Shrub removed.

[Stuckinthebush]

14. No - but it is not because of a conspiracy by the pollsters

That would be one hell of a conspiracy, and it really doesn't make much sense for all pollsters to be involved.

The numbers are way off due to sampling error. There are margin of error estimates on polls based on error in random sampling. The point here is that the MOE is determined by whether or not the sample is a true random sample of the population. If not, then there is no way to accurately compute the MOE.

It has always been difficult to get a true random sample of the population from a telephone interview. It is near impossible to do today. The reason is that the following assumptions are in effect when pulling a sample:

1) Each member of the population has a telephone or a representative portion of the population has a telephone.

2) Each member of the population has an equal chance of being polled

3) The proportion of different population segments that answer a poll are the same.

First off, assumption number one is false. The poorer one is, the less likely it is they will have a telephone. Also, more people are using cell phones as their only telephone, and these numbers are not used in sampling. Because certain segments of the population are less likely to be sampled than others, then assumption number 2 is false as well.

Given that 1 and 2 are true (which they are not), then assumption 3 would be a problem because older respondents and women are more likely to answer a poll call than younger respondents and men. This means that to get a representative sample based on all demographics, more calls will need to be made to get young and men than old and women. Number 3 is now false.

We don't know what the real spread is at any one time. Polling gives us a best guess based on what we can gather. I assume that Republican voters and moderate voters are over sampled and therefore the numbers reflect this over sampling. This means that Kerry is ahead by many more points than reflected in the polling data - regardless of polling firm.

Sampling is key, and there is no way to effectively sample for a poll.

[ProfessorGAC]

15. Yes, I Do

Knowing some people in the social statistics field, i know that at least some of these people are dilligent social scientists, in companies with diligent management for whom truth is the way to profitability, rather than an impediment to it.

I can't speak for all the polling firms, but i know which ones i believe, based upon the detailed work that's been done for years to prevent push or pull polling based upon the wording of the questions.

Pew is top notch, and so is Zogby. I've back analyzed Zogby's work, and he is shown to be highly accurate, highly reliable, and most precisely predictive. I know people at Pew, so i'm biased. But, their work passes the same tests.
The Professor

[goclark]

16. Thanks, how is Kerry doing in those polls.

[ProfessorGAC]

18. Here's What I Know, Right Now

I haven't talked to my pals at Pew for a couple of weeks, but he was ahead the last time i called. Sorry, but i didn't write it down, but i think it was 45 - 37, with 4% other, and the rest undecided. (Like i said, i'm not sure.)

The last time i looked at Zogby, he had Kerry ahead by about 4 points with an MOE of <4. So, it could be a deadheat, or it could be a blow out, based upon that.

Too many undecideds at this point, i would think to make a sound prediction. My guess would be that the numbers will become increasingly reliable as we approach the end of August. The firmer decisions are made, the questions become increasingly unambiguous, (and less likely to be interpreted ambiguously), and the undecideds go down. That happened the last 5 national elections i followed statistically.

I'll post something here the next time i talk to my friends.
The Professor

[Kazak]

17. Remember what the polls said about Dean?

Uh huh...

[TSIAS]

20. The polls were probably accurate at the time

The polls also showed the Edwards and Kerry surge right before the Iowa primaries.

[TexasSissy]

19. Depends on the poll. The interactive polls don't mean much, IMO.

[depakid]

21. Political polls have very limited meaning

and this is true even though otherwise intelligent people seem to be obsessed by them. They may predict trends or identify certain characteristics in their samples, but beyond that, they're more or less meaningless.

The results are easily manipulated and so they've become more of a persuasive tool than a form of measurement.

[mellowinman]

23. Here is the wisest thing anyone will tell you about this:

Many of the people who are saying they would vote for Bush WILL NOT BE VOTING.

Its that simple. Republicans and Conservatives cannot BEAR to say they'll vote for Kerry.

But many of them cannot BEAR seeing another four years of Bush.

They will say "Bush" until they're blue in the face.

And then they'll stay home.

Kerry will win in a landslide.

Bush fucked himself when he fucked the CIA.

He will NOT be our President this time around.

Take that to the BANK!