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groundloop

(11,488 posts)
Thu Aug 11, 2016, 09:45 PM Aug 2016

Who’s Behind A Mysterious Website Saying Polls Are Skewed Against Trump?

Source: fivethirtyeight

If you’re a close reader of political news, the website longroom.com might very well have come to your attention in the last week. The site hosts a polling page that purports to “remove the bias in the polls,” which mostly has the effect of showing Donald Trump up in the presidential race, though most polls show Hillary Clinton leading him by solid single-digit margins. If you’ve been a bit distracted by the Olympics and don’t have a clue what LongRoom is, no harm, no foul. In fact, that’s probably for the better, because the site’s methodology is askew and its purported “staff” has all the appearance of being fictitious.

For instance, the FiveThirtyEight polls-only forecast, which consolidates hundreds of polls, shows Clinton winning the popular vote 48.9 percent to 41.5 percent. The forecast gives her an 86.3 percent chance of winning the election right now. According to the most recent check-in with LongRoom, Trump is leading Clinton by 0.6 percentage points. The site’s methodology page assures readers that “it is a mathematical certainty, that as the election approaches, all of the polls will begin to match the polls here on LongRoom.”

<snip>

“Michael Ellis,” the man listed as LongRoom’s managing editor, is described in only the vaguest of terms as “an Internet Executive with over 23 years of experience, including general management of mid to large sized publications. He has been involved with internet community management his entire career.” The three other staff members have similarly indistinct bios, and rather than photographed headshots, the staff is depicted in sketches. None of the staff appears to have Twitter accounts, let alone follow the @LongRoomNews account. Searches for the staff on other social networking sites did not lead anywhere and there is no listed point of contact for any of the LongRoom staff members anywhere on the site. FiveThirtyEight reached out to the site’s only point of contact for comment — a support email address — and did not hear back. A public records search for LongRoom yielded no results for the business. (In addition to its “unbiased” polling operation, the site aggregates news stories.)

But an analysis of the site’s IP address showed that in April 2015, LongRoom switched its registration to a domain that for a fee, allows registrants to keep their names private — Domains By Proxy, LLC. The last name associated with the website, as recently as January 2015, is Fred Waid, who listed the site’s associated organization as “American Separatist” based out of New Mexico. FiveThirtyEight reached out to Waid but had not heard back as of publication.

Read more: http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/whos-behind-a-mysterious-website-saying-polls-are-skewed-against-trump/



Much more information at the link.
9 replies = new reply since forum marked as read
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Who’s Behind A Mysterious Website Saying Polls Are Skewed Against Trump? (Original Post) groundloop Aug 2016 OP
Michael Ellis? edbermac Aug 2016 #1
Great research - this I like to see - peel back the Onion.. asiliveandbreathe Aug 2016 #2
Oh My! I wonder who pays the server and ISP fees? Ford_Prefect Aug 2016 #3
John Miller. Marie Marie Aug 2016 #4
John Baron. Meredith McIver. blm Aug 2016 #5
I vote for Meredith McIver. She's wrote tRump's 2nd Amendment threat against Hillary also. groundloop Aug 2016 #6
You beat me to it! Squinch Aug 2016 #8
Probably the same guy in control of Breitbart - Robert Mercer. nt Lucky Luciano Aug 2016 #7
My, my, my. Is the same guy who did the "unskewed polls" site in 2012 at it again? catbyte Aug 2016 #9

asiliveandbreathe

(8,203 posts)
2. Great research - this I like to see - peel back the Onion..
Thu Aug 11, 2016, 09:52 PM
Aug 2016

I saw this article at 538 - been doing other research - will get to it..tks....

catbyte

(34,170 posts)
9. My, my, my. Is the same guy who did the "unskewed polls" site in 2012 at it again?
Fri Aug 12, 2016, 07:59 AM
Aug 2016

It was an embarrassing failure in 2012 and it'll be an even bigger on now.

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