Question:


Poll Demographics


About this Poll
The poll was based on returns between Aug. 12 and Thursday from 2,102 registered Ohio voters who say they intend to vote in the Nov. 4 general election.

The Dispatch obtained a computerized list of all registered voters in Ohio from the secretary of state's office. A Dispatch computer then randomly chose who would receive ballots, which were modeled as closely as possible after the state's official ballot layout.

Voters receiving the ballots were asked to describe themselves by party affiliation, age, sex, race, education, income, religion, union membership and how they voted in the 2006 governor's race and 2004 presidential contest.

Ballots of different colors were mailed to specific regions of the state so The Dispatch could ensure that each area was represented in proportion to its actual voting strength. The areas, patterned on groupings of the state's six major media markets, are northeast (20 counties), central (20 counties), southwest (eight counties), northwest (12 counties), west (14 counties) and southeast (14 counties).

The standard margin of sampling error in a poll of the size conducted by The Dispatch is plus or minus 2.2 percentage points in 95 out of 100 cases. This means that if a poll is conducted 100 times, in 95 cases the result will not vary by more than 2.2 percentage points from the result that would be obtained if all registered voters in Ohio were polled and responded. Error margins are greater for poll subsamples.

Like all polls, the Dispatch Poll is subject to error other than sampling error. Other sources of error can stem from people who change their mind after the poll was taken, unintentional bias in the wording of questions, data entry error or nonresponse bias. Nonresponse bias means that those who responded might not necessarily reflect the views of those who did not participate. The response rate was 18 percent.

The poll was designed, conducted and financed solely by The Dispatch.