tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6399730406480392183.post4406491429153188005..comments2024-03-27T11:18:34.222-03:00Comments on Viable Opposition: How Political Polling Can Be CorruptedA Political Junkiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03342345936277964422noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6399730406480392183.post-78184989194335463082016-11-02T19:54:01.289-03:002016-11-02T19:54:01.289-03:00While your points are valid and over- and under-sa...While your points are valid and over- and under-sampling can be used to prevent bias, I think that if you read the lines in context, they seem to point to very, very specific types of oversampling (i.e. in Florida, they wanted to oversample in specific regions or with Independents and in Iowa, they wanted to oversample No Party registrants and "soft supporters of Democratic and Republican nominees". That sounds more like introducing bias than reducing bias to me.<br /><br />Thanks for taking the time to read my blog and make a comment.A Political Junkiehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03342345936277964422noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6399730406480392183.post-91026174431206916222016-11-02T17:30:44.205-03:002016-11-02T17:30:44.205-03:00Well-written piece, but your logic fails from the ...Well-written piece, but your logic fails from the start in your basic misunderstanding of the term "oversampling". I certainly agree that surveys in general may be skewed in a number of ways, including how the very questions on the survey are constructed (garbage in = garbage out). Oversampling is a way to correct for a bias in the original data set, in other words to "balance" the data set so that the results are NOT skewed. I did not see anything in your highlighted report that indicated that oversampling was being contemplated to produce false polling results. In fact it is the opposite. If you survey 200 people at a boxing match where there are 100 men and 50 women, the data may be biased because your data results will skew towards the opinions of the men. An oversampling technique may correct for the inherent bias in the data set by counting the responses of the women twice, thereby balancing the two demographics. Oversampling may also help reduce the cost of a poll, as in Move-on.org's request to "maximize what [they] get out of [their] media polling." Polling is extremely expensive. MoveOn wants ACCURATE results for the least money, so oversampling techniques will allow for a smaller data set (cheaper) but one that will provide a more accurate and meaningful result.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08630816527178393537noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6399730406480392183.post-58073388351935200612016-10-28T08:54:48.978-03:002016-10-28T08:54:48.978-03:00While pondering the sorry state of politics in Ame...While pondering the sorry state of politics in America as the presidential election draws ever nearer it occurred to me this contest may very well be decided in the last waning days of the process. Several reasons exist as to why voters may pivot at the last moment and even surprise themselves.<br /><br />The bottom-line is that we should not be surprised if this election is decided it its final days because in our fast-paced world many voters seem to remember only what happened yesterday. More reasons this may go down to the wire in the article below.<br /><br />http://brucewilds.blogspot.com/2016/08/election-thoughts-and-sorry-sorry-state.htmlBruce Wildshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10181323607060607040noreply@blogger.com