You never did respond to repeated requests for elaboration about your feelings on uni polls.
Why UNI polls have... issues.... would require the writing of a book...
I will start the book here...
Lets follow the path of a poll to get it right...
Step 1; - Your list of Phone Numbers...
You cannot simply "randomly" pick phone numbers...
Rich people have more phone lines than poor people..
Families with teenagers have more phone lines
Young people have more cell phones than old people
Young people have more land lines than the old
Many people have a cell and an land line..
etc... etc...
To get a list of phone numbers that actually allows you to CONTACT a truly RANDOM sample of the population you need to do a huge amount of cross correlation of census tracks, phone directory information, etc...
This is far too complex a matter to get into here, but I'll make one point..
The generation of a truly random contact list is such a huge and complex matter that not even Gallup does it in house - Gallup buys their phone lists (as do most top-tier firms) from a company called Survey Sample Inc, who does nothing but sell these lists..
If Gallup (which has as many ph'ds as a lot of Universities) has concluded that not even they can do this VITAL step in house, what do you think the chances that one marketing professor and two grad students are going to get it right?
Likely voters?
Most of these Universities have never come within 50 miles of an actual election poll under "combat" conditions.
People lie when they are polled. Gallup uses 13 questyions to sort the "likely" from the "unlikely" most Universities use 2 or 3...
To pick on Keystone (since it is the topic of this thread) They are projecting that 35% of the entire sample of 565 registered voters meets their criteria as a likely GOP Primary voter.. this means that about +/- 70% of all registered GOP voters will vote in the primary.. are they on Drugs...?
in 2000, in a hotly contest Presidential race, plus a hotly contested Senate race on top of it, only 63% of the registered voters turned up to vote..
70% GOP turnout in a lukewarm Senate Primary...?
Give your head a shake...
Topics to still be covered....
Who are your operators?
Callbacks?
Is the ph'd in Math or Marketing?
TO BE CONTINUED.....
Given this PA has a lot of seniors who vote and in trun will go Kerry because of veteran issues, SSI, and Medicare. I'll pick Kerry +8 since he's stronger than Gore.
