If you ’ve glanced at the news this election time of year ( so like , the last two years ) , you ’ve likely establish yourself bombarded with election polls . But not all poll are created adequate . We the Voters , a video - heavy voter education project from the docudrama companyShow of Forceand the social impact - center Vulcan Productions , has two polling experts excuse just what make a good poll in the video above .
All poll parrot are conducted with an angle in mind , and sometimes , that angle is n’t just to figure out what the electorate is thinking . Many paper polls be given to be more inert , because news establishment have the public interest in creative thinker , but partizan news organizations also conduct poll that might have more of a bias . Campaigns , too , conduct their own polls , in part to figure out what ’s driving different groups of voters .
Good polls survey a random , wide sample of likely voters . The questions themselves weigh , too , since some questions can lead responder toward a certain answer in the next question . We the Voters has some metaphors that aid you understand exactly how this works .
Even the best poll are only estimates of public opinion , and Election Day will always bring in some surprise . President Obama ’s 2012 political campaign manager , Jim Messina , writes inThe New York Timesthat many election campaigns do n’t even get to with home poll , opting or else to target specific groups of voters they deem likely to support their candidate ( say , young Cuban American elector in Florida ) and cue them to show up to vote . Public opinion poll “ often use conversation with just a few hundred people to make predictions about the full electorate,“he explain . " get a truly representative sampling has become ever more difficult because of the grow percentage of households with only mobile phone , the number of voters who choose to speak a language other than English , and the difficulty in contacting younger elector , who generally do n’t have landlines . ”
Unfortunately , we , the anxious voter eager to suss out our favorite candidate ’s chances , do n’t have admittance to a campaign ’s elector data . Until November 8 , all we have to go on is polls , but at least there are some helpful intimation when it get to figuring out which I to confidence .
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