Reply #17: Is Telephone polling MORE accurate than actual vote counts?

[googly]

If Yes, then let us save the Billions spent each election on voting machines, polling booth staff, vote counting staff, lawyers,
litigations, ballot printing and subsequent safeguarding etc. etc.
Let us just conduct a telephone poll and declare the winner on
election day. Fast, Cheap, and just as good.

If No, then any kind of polling is just that...an aproximation in
anticipation of the actual vote counts. It is mainly useful for selling
newspapers and TV advertising time.

Just as a recent example, look at the vote counts in Washington
Governor's race. There was the initial machine count, the next
machine recount and finally the manual hand count. Out of the
2,300,000 votes cast in state, all 3 counts came in within 0.0082%
of each other. That is phenominal accuracy no matter how you skin the
cat.