Reply #6: About two months ago on Mystery Pollster

[davidgmills]

A social scientist made a very valid point I thought. He basically said that the statisticians, the mathmaticians and the political scientists have no business making judgments about purported polling "bias" due to human behavior.

The bandwagon theory or the bush non responder theory all fall within this category and are being proposed by ... well, I doubt they are experts in behavioral science.

I find it laugable that people would argue a poll was biased based on what type of clothes a pollster might be wearing or the length of his/her hair or whether he/she was well trained or not. If this really is a problem, then maybe all pollsters from now on should be brownie scouts or cub scouts so as not to offend anyone or embarrass any one. Of course, then I am sure we would be hearing that the poll was biased because too many potential responders didn't like children or snotty noses.

I want to know why some people will try so hard to find bias as an excuse before they will consider the prospect of election fraud as being more likely for the descrepancy.