Why are polls with decimals laughed at? (user search)
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  Why are polls with decimals laughed at? (search mode)
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Author Topic: Why are polls with decimals laughed at?  (Read 2308 times)
Sir Mohamed
MohamedChalid
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« on: August 22, 2018, 09:01:00 AM »

If a poll with decimals comes out, I often read responses like "LOL decimals". Why are these polls seen as ridiculous? Mathmemtically it's unusual the numbers just add up to an even number.
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Sir Mohamed
MohamedChalid
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Posts: 22,989
United States



« Reply #1 on: August 23, 2018, 08:55:58 AM »

Because polls aren't accurate enough for decimals to be meaningful.

Generally, this is true.  However, it isn't necessarily true.  Polls with large enough sample sizes could have meaningful decimals.

Uhh decimals aren't really reliable unless the margin of error were to be <0.5%

So you would need to poll about 50,000 people for a Presidential election, 40,000 for a state election, and 35,000 for a house race

The most people I've ever seen in a poll was about 20,000, and the funny part is it was one of the most inaccurate polls in 2016.

I saw one with 24,000, but that was conducted a moth before the election or so. Therefore, it wasn't accurate. If 2016 was held early October, Clinton would have won.
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