polls

Pete Ingemi – Da Tech Guy – and I were talking about micro-pollsters the other day, and I’m not alone in finding the sample size, em, lacking, to put it midly,

I took a look at the poll and it didn’t take long to notice some ….interestingissues to wit:

This is the sixth release of an 11-week tracking poll of Latino registered voters. Each week impreMedia and Latino Decisions will release a new rolling cross-section of 300 completed interviews with Latino registered voters across all 50 states. Battleground interviewers are combined across all six weeks and are 267 completed interviews, with Florida accounting for the largest share of battleground states.

So the battle ground figures in this poll are actually mini samples taken over six weeks while opinions might be changing. That’s bad enough but consider one more thing:

Battleground states: FL, NV, CO, AZ, OH, NH, NC, VA, IA, MO (all 7 points or smaller margin in current presidential polls)

Forget the insanity of trying to extrapolate the latino vote over fifty states based on a 300 person sample. Let’s look at the 10 battleground states 267 answers over 10 states.

Pete illustrates his point,

As I mentioned the other day, the Pew Hispanic Center reports that 23.7 million Latinos are eligible to vote in the USA (myself included).

Small sample? Huge margin of error?

Yes. Yes.

And we are to assume that is a significant enough ramdom sample?

Cross-posted in The Green Room.

Last night I was sitting in the family room reading St. Augustine for the class I’m auditing and enjoying a glass of wine, nearly dozing off (Augustine’s not quite the kind of reading I find exciting), when the phone rang.

It was the folks from the Fairleigh Dickinson University public opinion research center.

Imagine my surprise.

I’ve been eligible to vote for decades and this is the very first time any of the many surveys has called. I perked up and, seeing a blog post in the making, answered the many questions the lady asked.

First of all, it’s amazing that people actually answer. The survey comprised a few dozen questions and took close to an hour. I really was looking for an excuse to not read St. Auggie.

Then there were the questions: everything from Iraq and foreign policy, to Hillary and the Democrats, President Bush’s approval, New Jersey politics and tolls, and stem cell research. No stone was left unturned.

The questions were asked by a nice lady, not by a machine. A couple of years ago I got an automated “survey” and hung up immediately, not bothering to find out who had the brilliant idea to want my opinion without bothering with human courtesy and contact.

Unfortunately the lady asking the questions also offered unwanted feedback.

At one point the conversation went like,
“Is progress being made in Iraq?”
I answered, “Very definitely, yes.”
“It is?”
“Oh, yes.”
“Are you sure?”
“Most definitely. I’ve been talking to people who are actually in Iraq right now.”

It’s a good thing I passed Assertiveness Training class with flying colors.

My friend Pete goes to the diner

And the survey says…