Reply #136: Gosh

[Yupster]

"I still however, disagree with Bush supporters being less willing to be interviewed,therefore polling was inaccurately leaning to wards Kerry. Is there an explanation for this occurrence?"

There are all kinds of explanations. Who knows which explanations carry more weight than others, but since this is an effect that shows up in election after election, it certainly seems to be happening. Have some Republican voters been brainwashed to hate anyone who looks like the media? Are more Republicans just unhappier or more paranoid than more Democrats? Are they less comfortable talking to younger people who don't look like them? Are they just in a bigger rush getting back to their office or corralling their kids? Who knows which effect adds 1/2 of a percent here or there.

"Why would one group of voters be more willing to be interviewed while another refuses.Also, why was the polling so inaccurate during just this election?"

Again, the exit polls are inaccurate during almost every election, and they always seem to skew a bit toward the Democratic candidate. I know some will say that just proves that the Bush machine is even more cancer-like than they thought and now the proof is there that they've been stealing elections for over 20 years now.

"Both the democrats and the Republicans had large numbers of first time voters. There is also the question of the polls taken right before election day that had Kerry leading. Again, are we to assume Bush supports were less willing to be interviewed right before the election also?"

This I'm afraid is just false information that has been posted on DU over and over again over the last eight months. The polls right before the election were very close. More showed Bush a bit ahead than Kerry.

Right before the election, I followed the polls very closely and they were mostly all within just a few points of each other. I assumed Kerry would win thinking he'd get the last undecideds.

After the election, charts started going up on DU showing Kerry ahead in the pre-election polls. I thought this sounded wrong, so I went back and looked at the polls and what I found was disturbing.

To use just one example, the PEW Poll's final pre-eletion poll was Bush wins by 51-48%. In other words, they hit it exactly on the head. Yet this poster was using the final PEW Poll on his chart showing that Kerry was ahead.

I asked him where he was getting his info from since the PEW Poll did not show what he said it was showing and indeed showed the exact opposite. His response was that the final PEW Poll showed Bush was ahead 51-48 among LIKELY voters. However among REGISTERED voters, Kerry was ahead and he used the Registered Voters poll for his chart.

Well, that was the last time I paid any attention to that poster's analysis because anyone willing to manipulate numbers to that extent can show aything he wants to in a close election like this one was.

He'll continue to get "you rock" "you the man" and "you tell em the truth" from the true believers for years to come, but when you're working numbers and abuse them as much as he did, there's no more interest from me in his work.