Question:

About this Poll
From September 10-26, 2012, The Texas Lyceum conducted a statewide telephone survey of registered voters. The survey utilized a stratified probability sample design, with respondents being randomly selected at the level of the household. The survey also employed a randomized cell phone supplement, with approximately 16% of completed interviews being conducted among cell phone only or cell phone dominant households. A Spanish-language instrument was developed and bilingual interviewers offered respondents a chance to participate in English or Spanish. On average, respondents completed the interview in 19 minutes. Approximately 6,500 records were drawn to yield 1,175 completed interviews. The final data set is weighted by race/ethnicity, age and gender to achieve representativeness as defined by the Texas specifications from the 2010 Current Population Study. The overall margin of error for the poll is +/- 2.83 percentage points.

The ballot questions were asked of a random subset of the overall sample. All told, 666 registrants were asked the ballot question (margin of error = +/- 3.80 percentage points).

Some numbers and analysis—including the ballot items—were produced with a screen for likely voters. Voters were deemed “likely” if they indicated that they were registered to vote, indicated that they were “somewhat” or “extremely” interested in politics, and indicated that they had voted in “almost every” or “every” election in the last 2-3 years. Overall, this screen produced 805 likely voters out of 1,175 registrants, 68.5% of registered voter sample. The overall margin of error for the survey of likely voters is +/- 3.45 percentage points. For the ballot items, 443 respondents out of the 666 were likely voters, creating a margin of error of +/- 4.6