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'Cellphone Effect' Could Skew Polling Predictions
Ponca City writes "A good deal of polling data suggest that Republicans may win the House of Representatives in today's mid-term elections. However, Nate Silver writes in the NY Times that there are several factors that could skew the election, allowing Democrats to outperform their polls and beat consensus expectations. Most prominent is the 'cellphone effect.' In 2003, just 3.2% of households were cell-only, while in the 2010 election one-quarter of American adults have ditched their landlines and rely exclusively on their mobile phones, and a lot of pollsters don't call mobile phones. Cellphone-only voters tend to be younger, more urban, and less white — all Democratic demographics — and a study by Pew Research suggests that the failure to include them might bias the polls by about 4 points against Democrats, even after demographic weighting is applied. Another factor that could skew results is the Robopoll effect, where there are significant differences between the results shown by automated surveys and those which use live human interviewers — the 'robopolls' being 3 or 4 points more favorable to Republicans over all. It may be that only adults who are extremely engaged by politics (who are more likely to be Republican, especially this year) bother to respond to robocalls. Still, when all is said and done, 'more likely than not, Republicans will indeed win the House, and will do so by a significant margin,' writes Silver. 'But just as Republicans could beat the consensus, Democrats could too, and nobody should be particularly shocked if they do.'"
I'm sitting this one out, and possibly 2012 as well. Voting for the guy or gal that lies the least still means I'm supporting a liar. The very nature of politics nowadays automatically means someone with enough clout to run for election is unfit to serve...
Living With a Nerd
"Less white" is the key here.
The party which wins will be the party which is more successful in hacking electronic voting machines.
Basically you're telling us what we've already known for decades... that polling is retarded and highly inaccurate.
Cellphone-only voters tend to be younger, more urban, and less white — all Democratic demographics — and a study by Pew Research suggests that the failure to include them might bias the polls by about 4 points against Democrats, even after demographic weighting is applied.
Umm...isn't the point of demographic weighting to factor in "unweighted" demographics like this?
Bitch.
-Rick
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
The noble candidate A, who will lower taxes, expand benefits, and is for a strong America
or
The candidate B, who voted for increased taxes and fewer benefits.
---
Do you want to vote for"
Corporate controlled sock... er "Conservative" Candidate A?
or
Corporate controlled sock... er "Liberal" Candidate B?
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
about who is *going* to win? Can't they wait until after the polls to bring the news?
I have a landline, actually, but it has caller ID. I don't answer calls from unknown or out-of-area callers, which includes pollsters.
I wonder which demographics correlate with people who use Caller ID to screen calls. (Cue debate.)
Cellphone-only voters tend to be younger, more urban, and less white -- all Democratic demographics...
And all far less likely to vote than old, white people.
Maybe the Democratic GOTV effort will surprise me, but I was less than impressed with the "historic" turnout among young people in the '08 election. The vast majority of them still are either too apathetic or too cynical to bother voting.
And will those first-time African American voters from '08 still turn out even though Obama is not on the ballot this year? Will Latinos turn out even though the Democrats did nothing on immigration reform?
It may be that only adults who are extremely engaged by politics (who are more likely to be Republican, especially this year) bother to respond to robocalls.
Poll Phone Operator: Excuse me, sir or ma'am, do you have a free minute to answer a few simple questions anonymously about who you plan to vote for?
...
Phone Respondent One: Well, let's see, what would Jesus do?
*Poll Phone Operator hangs up the phone and puts a check mark next to the Republican candidate*
Poll Phone Operator: Excuse me, sir or ma'am, do you have a free minute to answer a few simple questions anonymously about who you plan to vote for?
Phone Respondent Two: Sorry, what did you say? It's cloudy and my solar powered phone is cutting in and out.
*Poll Phone Operator hangs up the phone and puts a check mark next to the Democratic candidate*
Poll Phone Operator: Excuse me, sir or ma'am, do you have a free minute to answer a few simple questions anonymously about who you plan to vote for?
Phone Respondent Three: Yes I do, just let me put NASCAR on mute, I can talk and watch at the same time.
*Poll Phone Operator hangs up the phone and puts a check mark next to the Republican candidate*
Poll Phone Operator: Excuse me, sir or ma'am, do you have a free minute to answer a few simple questions anonymously about who you plan to vote for?
Phone Respondent Four: I'm so sorry but I just put on a 180 gram vinyl Arcade Fire album and I fear that if I remove the needle prematurely I would
*Poll Phone Operator hangs up the phone and puts a check mark next to the Democratic candidate*
Poll Phone Operator: Excuse me, sir or ma'am, do you have a free minute to answer a few simple questions anonymously about who you plan to vote for?
Phone Respondent Five: Fuck you and fuck the establishment you rode in on.
*Poll Phone Operator hangs up the phone and puts a check mark next to the Independent candidate*
My work here is dung.
In 2003 it was uncommon for people to port out their home number to their cell. Most polsters don't even know what's a cell and what isn't anymore. I can attest to this being in Madison Wi because Russ Fiengolds called me at least a dozen times this week in a desperate attempt to keep his seat.
Some background is in order here; this is not a typical piece for Silver. He did a companion to it a couple days ago, giving the reasons the GOP could overperform. These are just "what if" stories, designed to flesh out the message he's been driving for some time now, which is that this election has unusually high uncertainty. He isn't engaging in hackery and claiming everything will be fine for Democrats...
Given a choice between free speech and free beer, most people will take the beer.
There's another really common effect I've seen in every election. Whoever is losing tends to make up reasons why they're not going to lose because it makes them feel better. Why doesn't everyone wait a couple hours and just see who wins THEN draw conclusions about the different polls' accuracy. If you think about it, estimating how accurate polls' estimations are before you see the results is extremely stupid and against all logic and math. If this story came out tomorrow as an explanation for why the democrats won more than everyone thought, then we have a story.
Google's Super Secret Search Algorithm: SELECT @search_results FROM internet WHERE @search_results = 'good'
Most polls use the turnout numbers for last election as a baseline for potential voters, then ask questions to determine to which party the respondent belongs. If polls spit out just the raw numbers, they'd be more than useless.
Your worries about skewed numbers are mostly unjustified....it's been 50+ years since the "DEWEY DEFEATS TRUMAN!" days. (And younger, urban voters don't vote in mid-term elections anyhow.)
American public: "Wow, those Republicans sure fucked everything up. Better vote Democrat this time."
T+4 years: "Wow, those Democrats sure fucked everything up. Better vote Republican!"
T+8 years: "Wow, those Republicans sure fucked everything up. Better vote Democrat this time."
Umm, people? We have other choices, you know. The extremes of *any* party are going to be nut-jobs, but we can probably do a lot better to let the D's and R's set a few rounds out.
But we won't, will we. Because voting is supposed to be about thinking with other people's brains and voting with the flock.
The younger, more urban, and less white Americans are a lot less likely to vote. With Republicans riding on the rage and Democrats failing to do anything about it, the outcome is too predictable in this midterm election.
And in other news: http://tech.slashdot.org/story/10/10/31/1520249/Predicting-Election-Results-With-Google
The 'cellphone effect' is true, but it doesn't mean that republicans will not not get a majority in the house. It just means they will most likely get a couple of seats less than predicted.
"Cellphone-only voters tend to be younger, more urban, and less white"
That's so true. I just got back from Hawaii with a nice tan and I only use a cell phone.
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
i was gonna skew somebody if i got one more robo-call last night. sheesh.
Republican preference has been consistently underrepresented in polls for as long as I remember- and cellphones didn't suddenly appear in the last year.
love is just extroverted narcissism
They keep robocalling our house and I keep telling them this is a private line and that I don't talk to robots.
But robots don't listen.
Although, if I ever get a political push-poll robocall that starts by asking "are there stairs in your house?" I will answer long enough to ensure them I am protected.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Complete wishful bullshit.
Amazing how much rationalization is going into analyzing (and trying to explain away) polling data that suggests a Democratic bloodbath. What, too much "change" in the air now?
Fwiw and purely anecdotally, I've always seen results skew 4+ percent to the right of polls, because consevatives (even 'engaged' ones), are far more likely to share their view with a pollster, while liberals - especially the young - LOVE to tell everyone how liberal they are.
-Styopa
It doesn't matter who you vote for.
Please do the right thing. Go f***ing vote. And please vote well (i. e. not for the religious wingnuts, right-wing war mongerers, and Fox-News watchers).
Thank you.
in your words, is the perfect cattle of an authoritarian country, the perfect double plus good citizen
the simple truth of the matter is, if you wait for your perfect candidate, you will never vote. and even then you will find something wrong with them. every election, ever held, and will ever be held, will simply be a choice between the lesser of two evils. no one is pure, no one doesn't have lies spread about them
the real criminal is you: you who hold your candidates to impossible standards, and then complain no one meets those standards
what you are really doing is rationalizing your desire to absolve yourself of responsibility for the society you live in. you are detaching yourself from any crimes that happens in your society, absolving yourself of guilt: "i didn't choose our leaders"
and in a country composed of people who think like you, sits the happiest tyrant
go to work slave. don't ever complain again. even when they increase your workhours and decrease your salary. not your fault, right?
you, all by yourself, no one else to blame, have given up the right to complain, by choosing not to do the ONE TINY THING that guarantees that you live in a free country: VOTE
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Here's how it is going to go down. We will replace a set of idiots who don't care about us, with a new set of idiots who don't care about us.
did you forget to take your meds?
The "cellphone effect" causes polls to under-represent certain demographics, say by 10%. Those demographics also tend to be under-represented in the voting population, say by 50%. That 50% reduces the magnitude of the cellphone effect, so you expect the overall correction to be 5% in favor of democrats. This is how I interpreted "demographic weighting" in the summary, I'm not sure what problem you're seeing with it.
I purchased a book called "How to lie with statistics" by Darrell Huff. It was written in 1954. The first chapter is called "The sample with the built-in bias". It contains amongst other things the story of polling phone subscribers for the 1936 presidential election.
Long story short, phone subscribers were economically and socially biased to be more likely to be republican at that time and so the poll picked Landon as a probable president and not Roosevelt. It's sad and funny at the same time to see how little the pollsters learned.
It takes a man to suffer ignorance and smile
Be yourself no matter what they say
The New York Times is pretty left wing. Of course they're going to grasp at threads to say the polls are wrong, and America really wants the kind of government we've had these last two years.
Beware of any poll, or comments on the validity of polls, conducted by the far left or the far right. They're likely to be skewed in one direction or the other.
Democrats could too, and nobody should be particularly shocked if they do.
well I listen to a lot of FOX radio on AM mainly for comedic entertainment, and to keep tabs with what that side is saying, and according to them if Democrats win everyone in the country must have been influenced, intimidated, or bribed
so yes I would think they would be quite shocked and provide me with quite a bit more entertainment value
"...Cellphone-only voters tend to be younger, more urban, and less white — all Democratic demographics..." ...I'm older, suburban and white. I must be a Republican...
Whichever party wins just determines which of our rights are taken away first.
Will I lose my right to carry a gun this time around? Or maybe my right to terminate an unwanted pregnancy? My right to smoke Salvia? My right to keep the money I earned?
Everything we value is on the chopping block, the only difference is which subset is directly assaulted.
Who can really say. Counter-example:
I'm doing graduate research involving monitoring students in computer science labs. Today the instructor asked how many students were planning to vote. Around 15% raised their hands. At least that many had a stunned look in their eyes as though they didn't even realize it was election day.
Young people may be more likely to own only cell-phones and tend to be much more progressive, but it seems as though they may be a lot less likely to vote. Most of them probably live within a few blocks of where they can vote and it's a nice day out so there's not much of an excuse.
I follow Silver's site as he often writes a lot about the statistics behind his model, which I usually find more interesting than the results or political commentary, but if these observations are true, why the hell aren't they built into his model? If these effects actually exist and skew polling results, why haven't they already been taken into consideration? Also, what effects exist that skew the results in the other direction and what evidence supports them?
This article feels sloppy, especially when compared to the usual high quality from fivethirtyeight. Let's wait another twelve hours and then we'll have a pretty good idea about the actual outcome and can start speculating what might have caused it to deviate from the expected results so that the prediction model can be adjusted accordingly.
I don't see why anyone actually deals with robocalls. You can always tell when an automated system called you, there is that long pause after you pick up the phone before it connects you to the automated message system or the poor call center schmuck. It usually takes a second or two to connect, so you have that nice moment of absolute silence that tips you off to hang up. If robocallers want to get my opinion, or deliver their message to me, they'd better have someone actually on the line when I pick the phone up (not that they seem to be missing my input...).
What you're suggesting is that we make it illegal to study the correlation between who candidates are popular and who is declared the winner. It seems like quite a big leap away from open democracy... Sure, there could still be polls afterwards... But there would be far less incentive (political, financial, etc.) after someone has already been declared a winner. I really don't consider that such a good idea.
Rather, the system of "Unless your vote is the decisive one, it doesn't matter" (it doesn't help to vote for someone who would win regardless of it or to vote for someone who won't win anyways) is broken. Where I live, we use D'Hondt method (and have quite a lot more parties) so voting is much more likely to have some effect.
For some reason the GOP seems content to forget just how badly they got whooped by Obama in that election. All those people clearly know how to vote and show no signs that they have all changed their minds somehow to support big business instead.
It is odd that they act as if these professional polling companies have no idea this is going on. Some of them may not be factoring it in, so you could argue that aggregate polls could be skewed by it. However, I think hoping for too much of a shift is just setting yourself up for a disappoint similar to the one Republicans faced in the 2008 election.
Remember all that talk about how it was shown more people would claim they were voting for a black candidate than would actually vote for him just so they wouldn't seem racist? Turns out, the polls were actually pretty accurate. Who would have thought that people who do these polls for living might actually come up with a decent model? I'd wager at least the big names such as Zogby, Rassmussen, and Gallup have done a great deal of research into how the rise of cell phones would skew their polling.
just make sure that your thinking is based on truth and reality, and not lies
otherwise, you are just a fool, a tool being used by special interests. and the people printing the lies are not the poor on the street, nor those agitating that we care for the poor: they can't afford it. some of the special interests have agendas that will mean that you too will be walking the streets poor soon
know the real enemy of the american people: it comes in a suit, and it lies. some of it is public unions (money to democrats). some of it is corporations (money to republicans)
but its not the poor. don't hate the poor, you might be poor soon too. of all the lies and propaganda and scaremongering and fearmongering, to me, those who attack policies which are only intended to take care of us, US i said, including the poor amongst us, that you may someday be too, that is the most odious and the most evil of political lies
care about your society, take care of it
or stop wondering why the world you live in is so brutal: you are the reason why, your society is merely a reflection of you. take responsibility for it
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
How do they access AOL?
Ken
I know I enjoyed Nate's blog immensely during the 2008 election. Very good analysis. What I liked most about it, however, was it's *independence*. It placed the science of polling ahead of an agenda. I felt like, here's one place in our society where we can take a detached look at elections, and view it as the "sport" it really is (Nate's experience first came in sabermetrics).
Since the 08 election (and the healthcare debate in particular), Nate's abandoned much of his independence. I stopped reading a while ago because of it. While this doesn't mean his conclusions in the Times article are wrong, but I now view them with a certain skepticism that wasn't there before. I guess taking an independent and impartial view towards politics is just not interesting (or profitable?) for most folks.
This article raises such a good point, I mean Republicans don't have cell phones! This guy has figured out the riddle, I say.
Nothing like a clean slate!
His problem (and mine) is that the summary basically says "After you adjust for not polling enough democrats, you need to adjust for not polling enough democrats."
William of Ockham had no beard. The most likely explanation is that it was chewed off by squirrels every morning.
Yeah people tell you it's your civic duty etc and yeah most are a bunch of crooks anyway but if I don't vote one day (when the corporations have achieved voting status...not far off) the right may be taken away from me. Stop bitching and get involved with local politics as that's where you actually have a chance to influence things. The presidential elections are a joke. We've got two parties that believe their shit doesn't smell and have the general public fooled. Both parties are a slave to their own ideology and can't see the house crumbling down around them.
"We are just a war away from Amerikastan. When god vs god the undoing of man." Dave Mustaine
This reminds me of the great exit poll kerfuffle when John Kerry was seen to be leading in exit polls to a greater extent than the actual poll results bore out.
Ken
There is a global movement to make politicians obsolete: http://metagovernment.org/
Here are a few of the projects working on various aspects of it: http://metagovernment.org/wiki/Related_projects
This article makes a great point... if you assume this demographic actually voted in meaningful numbers.
I would probably have a land line if the only calls that ever came in on it were asking for donations or votes.
I don't understand who actually listens to these messages or answers polls. Who even pays attention to the online advertising these idiots are doing?
Americans should do some research before they vote anyhow; not listening to what someone on the phone tells them.
Back in the days of ELIZA and people wondering whether computers really could be used to augment, if not replace, human therapists, I recall people describing their surprise at how readily people would confide in such software; perhaps people's inclination to post everything on Facebook is related. But:the existence of a difference between what people tell automated polls and human pollers doesn't, by itself, tell you which of those responses reflects what the people polled really think. For all I know, that ELIZA effect still holds, and people will tell the machine something that they wouldn't tell a human. A robocall won't turn on you and say "You favor tax cuts?! THINK OF THE CHILDREN!!!!" (at least not yet!) or give you a dirty look or inflection that indicates disapproval.
designed to make you laugh
not guide your thinking
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Umm...isn't the point of demographic weighting to factor in "unweighted" demographics like this?
You would think they would be allowing for it. But given the admission that they might fail to do so you have to pretty much assume its just a "hail Mary" pronouncement, that reflects more on the polling industry than anything else.
The day when cell phone ownership was significant is long past.
When the majority of 16 year olds and a large percentage of 12 year olds have cells, not to mention both parents, and the grand parents, the days where this mattered are long past.
Certainly there is no longer any basis to assert that cell ownership is skewed along political lines.
Nor is there for land line ownership.
In fact you could make the case that these polls are more likely to be weighted in favor of the Democrats by relying on land lines. If anything, land lines are more prevalent in poor, under educated households (historically a Democratic strong hold), while more affluent better educated have move totally to cells (even for the kids) and use land-lines for answering machines (if at all). The richer you get, the less likely you are to answer a land line.
But virtually everyone has caller id these days, and we all have learned not to answer that robo-dialed 8xx number. I'm amazed they can actually call enough people to create a valid poll anymore.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
Why is it do you think that we don't have some old school hackers tampering with polster network systems to simply stop the polster BS?
I mean it would be pretty easy to skew statistical data by blanket falseified inputs you can make by remotely tampering with their call software. And if done right you'd never see annoying phone calls ever again because if it's done on a large enough scale and if done in all regional network call area's, polster data would become dead as a means to gauge the public interest, atleast once they figure it out.
Vote for Kang!
http://www.fec.gov/pubrec/2000presgeresults.htm
the results of the 2000 elections were decided by a razor slim margin. meaning those who chose not to vote had a real effect: they helped bush win
and if you say "politicians are all the same": tell me with a straight face gore would have invaded iraq
those who don't care, or don't want to be involved, are just as guilty as everyone else for the sorry state of the world, if not more so
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
The good thing about our election system is that anybody can run for election and win.
The bad thing about our election system is that anybody can run for election and win.
And I'm not a Democrat.
And I voted already.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
Politics is just one coast to coast ass blast (thanks its always sunny). I'll only be voting to vote down a property tax hike "for the children" wont somebody PLEASE think of the children??
Local is pretty important. The small suburb I live in was briefly taken over by social conservatives when most everyone except their base stayed home. Probably the corruption of the incumbents, involving a land deal and favorable zoning changes to bring the worlds tallest building (!) to town. The deal collapsed, but not before the mayor made a bundle off the land where the building was to go. After they got the boot, the social conservatives proceeded to screw up big time. Went on a holy crusade against liquor stores. Didn't care about past agreements, the law, our tax base, or anything, just started coming up with bull to run all the liquor stores out of town. The liquor stores sued the city and all the councilpersons who voted against them on the cooked ordinances designed to make it impossible for them to do business. And they won. You can imagine what other brilliant schemes those idiots hatched. Cost us a bundle. Next election was a huge landslide against the social conservatives.
The other reason is that winning isn't everything. If we are ever to have more choices, we have to vote for 3rd parties. Doesn't matter if they don't win, just get them on the radar. We need more parties so we aren't stuck with dilemmas like the above one between corrupt or loony. I noticed this year's ballot had 4 straight ticket choices: R, D, Libertarian, and Green. Green? That's courtesy of the Republicans, trying a dirty trick to suck votes away from Democrats. They're playing with fire. What if the Greens actually collect a significant portion of the vote? Or even-- win?? I'll be laughing at the Republicans for shooting themselves in the foot. Democrats aren't above that crap either. I hear many of them have helped Tea Party candidates win Republican primaries.
Intellectual Property is a monopolistic, selfish, and defective concept. It is "tyranny over the mind of man"
Sane here. I never shy away from voting for people who are not from the major parties. If everyone voted that way, we might have more independents and less power for the Democrats and Republicans in office. Too many think it is "throwing their vote away". Problem is, when everyone thinks like that, no third choice has a chance.
I firmly believe not everyone should vote. Stupid people, for instance. The king that are often interviewed in man-on-the-street interviews who can't tell you who the President is, Speaker of the House, and other basic information people should have before voting. Those people should stay home. That's why I always hope for rain on voting day, it keeps stupid and lazy people at home. Unfortunately, the rain called for my area is holding off.
Ron Paul 2012 FTW!!!
Lack of landlines means ~4 points for democrats, and robopollers means ~4 points towards republican. So they "cancel each other out" in effect? This article (or the summary at least) has effectively destroyed itself. There is no news here. Move along.
Another factor that could skew results is the Robopoll effect
How about the Fox effect? On which site is Fox "News" in your country now?
http://www.mueller-public.de - My site http://www.anr-institute.com/ - Advanced Natural Research Institute
Cell phone make their owners more Democratic, more liberal, and less white? Will cell phones now end up being the target of the next Tea Party campaign? "Protect the children! Cellphones will turn your children liberal, atheist, Democratic, Darwinist, environmentalist, black, and gay!"
When you vote, you legitimize the process.
If you believe the process is inherently illegitimate, then you can't vote in good conscience. All you are doing is taking the red pill by voting.
You made the choice they wanted you to make and bought into the system which has been corrupted badly (probably irredeemably) over the last 40 years.
Candidates who are not bought and paid for are made to look like idiots by corporate controlled media (radio, tv, print and even web).
If you live in the USA, you legitimize the process, whether you vote or not. You're counted in the Census; your warm body is used to allocate representatives and electoral college seats to whoever your (voting) neighbors choose.
By not voting, you're effectively saying, "Whatever my neighbors vote for has my full support!"
Don't want to legitimize the process? Move out of the country and renounce your citizenship.
I figure a few more votes from some dead relatives won't hurt at all.
j/k
Seriously this is interesting. I wonder if the County Registrars even have the cell #s in their rolls.
The Kai's Semi-Updated Website Thingy
But given the admission that they might fail to do so you have to pretty much assume its just a "hail Mary" pronouncement, that reflects more on the polling industry than anything else.
There was no admission of the kind. There was a study done by Pew that if you didn't adjust for it, it could skew the results by up to 4 points.
Customers aren't happy when the polls they ordered are inaccurate (unless they specifically ordered a skewed poll for media purposes, which is more likely with a PAC driven poll than the normal polls), so the big names in polling are very keen on keeping their polls as accurate as possible. An 8 point swing would be very damaging to their bottom line, so you can bet your ass they are going to try to nail it by taking every factor imaginable into account.
Thus, this is almost certainly a non-story. If they know the cell phone crowd favors dems, they are going to adjust for it. If they know robopolls favor repubs, they are going to adjust for it. They do this with hundreds of other factors to keep the polls as close to reality as possible. Therefore, I wouldn't expect a huge difference unless the pollsters have missed something major.
Security is mostly a superstition... Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. - Helen Keller
It's not possible to weight for something you don't measure at all (i.e. cell phone only voters). The demographic information on those other groups is used but, because there is a cell phone effect in addition to the other demographic information, you can't do anything about that if you don't measure any cell phone voters.
This whole article is a big "it could happen" in the face of the fact that the democrats are about to get their asses severely kicked in this election. And no amount of wishful thinking will change that.
My impression is that the Democrats get most of their votes from the educated middle classes, whereas Republicans are strong among the wealthy and the uneducated (only that would explain their support for creationism). But even if you were right about voting preferences, the percentage of rich people is far smaller than that of old people. Old people are also traditionally conservative, hence the bias. Still, I doubt professional pollsters are unaware of this.
To do list for Windows
Cellphone-only voters tend to be younger, more urban, and less white
How do you measure whiteness?
Is a dance-off somehow involved?
\/\/\/
Sure, proportional representation would be a huge improvement. As the parent says, it gives smaller parties a chance - one they will never have under the current system. Proportional representation also completely eliminates the problem of Gerrymandering. All representatives are representatives of the entire State, elected by the State as a whole. It genuinely is a better system.
Unfortunately, in order to make such a fundamental change, you will need the support of - guess who - the existing political parties. There is zero chance of them supporting a measure that would dramatically reduce their power and influence.
But it is a nice dream...
Enjoy life! This is not a dress rehearsal.
Both sides WILL beat the consensus, just in different races ;-)
I understand the desire to send a "protest" vote by not voting for a congressman or senator that has broken your heart, but you should still vote for down-ballot local candidates (sheriffs, judges, freeholders, AG's, etc) and ballot initiatives that have a direct, local impact on you and your community. (And hopefully, while you're in that booth, you'll change your mind about voting for the big-ticket candidates. I mean, you're already there, right?)
"Was it a millionaire who said 'Imagine No Posessions?'" -- Elvis Costello
If the poll's are off or not, or even if it matters.
Nate Silver writes in the NY Times that there are several factors that could skew the election, allowing Democrats to outperform their polls and beat consensus expectations. Most prominent is the 'cellphone effect.'
He forgot the Chicago Effect; dead folks and pets are not good at answering phone polls either.
The thing is, the better pollsters do indeed do this. You're absolutely right.
I've seen left-leaning folks excoriate Rasmussen as just being a "mouthpiece" of the Right, but in fact, Pollster.com (now part of the Huffington Post) has acknowledged that they have generally been very accurate in the past few election cycles. Why? Because Scott Rasmussen knows how to ... drum roll, please! ... do demographic weighting, accurately determine who is, in fact, likely to vote, correct for cell phone usage and etc., etc.
On the other side of the coin, my right-leaning friends love to dump on Gallup and the New York Times polls, but all that matters at the end of the day is how accurate they are. This can easily be checked after the election: how far off were they? Who was the most accurate? Why were they wrong? Cellphones are just one reason (and just for the record, the first major pollster to claim to adjust for the "cellphone effect" was John Zogby, way back in 2000 and 2002).
From my experience in the past, the polls have generally tended to favor the Democrats by a few points, especially here in the South. The best example was years ago, when I lived in NC, and Jesse Helms was running against former Charlotte mayor Harvey Gant (sp?) for the US Senate. The polls consistently showed a statistical dead heat, but Helms actually won handily by about 8 points. Post-mortem showed that the pollsters had badly guessed probably turnout from rural areas, which tend to be much more conservative in a state like NC.
(Or, in plain English, Ma and Pa Kettle fired up the truck and headed in to vote, but they were never polled!) :)
HOWEVER ... that WAS in the past. In recent years, the reputable pollsters have slowly become more and more accurate. A good pollster always does a post-mortem after each election to see what he/she guessed wrong and how they can tweak their models to improve for the next election.
realclearpolitics.com keeps a running average of ALL polls. According to their latest results, the Republicans will definitely win the House, and will *possibly* win the Senate. We'll see how right the polls were (and who was the most accurate) in the post-mortem after the election.
Cogito, igitur comedam pizza.
In 2003, just 3.2% of households were cell-only, while in the 2010 election one-quarter of American adults have ditched their landlines and rely exclusively on their mobile phones, and a lot of pollsters don't call mobile phones.
This is exactly what has happened in Polish presidential elections 2010. In the first voting, one of the candidates was overrepresented while the other one - underrepresented due to surveying companies a) avoiding cell phones and b) wrongly assigning those that refused to answer.
It's worse than that-- I have 4 phone numbers, and only one of them has the area code of where I actually live-- and one has the area code from another state. Number portability means that you get lots of robocalls from idiots in other districts or states that I couldn't vote for if I wanted to...
The status of third parties does seem to be stuck in a frustrating chicken and egg situation, AFAIK.
I listen to both RIAA and non-RIAA stuff if I like the music, tangential business/politics nonwithstanding.
"None of the above. Chtulhu."
46 & 2
Breaking News: 'Polling Predictions' Could Skew Polling Results. Don't forget the Heisenberg Principle here, you can't observe something without changing it. I wish they would let elections run their course without publishing any stats.
To generalize: Voting on local issues is more important to you because it's more relevant to you and you have greater influence on it?
Someone wouldn't *have* to vote on state/national things while they're at the polls for local business, but people would be inclined to while they're there, right?
I listen to both RIAA and non-RIAA stuff if I like the music, tangential business/politics nonwithstanding.
Has there been an election or study where the voter has *one* vote which can be exercised either for *or* against a candidate? This would be a useful option when faced with the a bunch of candidates who are all unspectacular.
I voted for "Burn In Hell, You Despicable Scum" for several offices.
My god, you are delusional. LOOK up when the economy in the US crashed. Bush was in power. In fact Obama was elected because people couldn't believe the mess Bush had made of things. And now they get the republicans who created the mess back because Obama can't fix decades of mis-management in two years.
The US economy was fucked over by reagonomics were the intrests of wall street and short term speculators have ruined the American industrial base leading to more and more Americans contributing nothing to the economy. Basically, the US has since WW2 played the "lets pump up economy X and sell them our movies". It worked for the EU, it worked for Japan, ir worked for Korea. Then they tried it with China and forgot that China is far far larger. Sony went from a crap copy maker to a company that beat US companies down. Korean car makers do better then US companies, but they are as nothing to the growing industrial might of China. Once China stops like Japan and Korea to copy US tech and make its own (In Japan, nobody thinks the iPhone is the best, there are far better phones available already) and in China already you can get very decent LOCALLY designed gadgets that start adding their own tech.
Meanwhile Detroit is a ghost town and it ain't the only one. All so wall street could score a quick win by stripping American business for their last penny and fire every American worker and then claim employment is good because families can only survive holding down a double job per person.
And you blame congres... my god. You sure get the wool pulled over your eyes. Wall Street controls the economy.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
You make several good points, but ultimately, I still find I disagree with you on some of it.
Although major party candidates of the "2 party system" may in fact use a 3rd. party candidate as "leverage" to get more votes (channeling support to them so votes for them siphon them away from their direct competitor), I'm not sure that should be viewed as a "problem"? If you happen to believe that neither a Republican or a Democrat that's running for a given position is right for the job, you're stuck with the following options:
1. Refuse to vote. (Useless, because by sitting it out, you're ranked among the apathetic. Everything goes on without your input.)
2. Go to the polls and vote for the "lesser of 2 evils" of the Republicans/Democrats in question. (That means your vote just counted the same as the next guy who was in FULL SUPPORT of the candidate you disliked, but only voted for because you hoped they were slightly better than the alternative.)
3. Vote for a 3rd. party candidate who is closer to your own beliefs than the others in the running.
4. Vote for a write-in candidate. (Practically-speaking, this option seems to accomplish nothing except in some oddball case where you knew the majority agreed to go with a write-in. Otherwise, it's pretty much a statistical impossibility your random write-in candidate is going to be selected over people actually named on the ballot as choice, who spent money actively campaigning.)
So optimally, I think your options really boils down to either 2 or 3 here, if you're wanting to accomplish anything at all? And the way I look at it? If nobody cast any votes for the 3rd. party guys or gals on the ballot, they'd eventually just go away completely. Sure, their chances of actually winning might be slim to none, but your vote for them helps legitimize what they're doing. For example, the Libertarian party has pretty much always managed to get somebody onto the ballot in every election I've ever voted in. They may only get 3% of the vote in the end -- but that's enough so they know some people out there are listening to what they're saying. In turn, they may influence some of the Democratic or Republican voters to demand more Libertarian-minded solutions from their candidates down the road.
it enviably comes down to degree to which they want power VS Ideals/Ideology. Compromise is part of the political process on every level.
I am a bit conflicted.
I hate politicians that throw away their ideals, simply to get into power.
I also hate politicians that have ideals yet refuse to compromise to get stuff done or to serve their party rather than their country.
I am a firm believer that you can do both of those things and that they are not mutually exclusive. However from my experience thus far the failure rate seems pretty high, most seem to do what I hate about politicians. It seems most actually like to break both rules, by doing/saying whatever it takes to get the votes to get into power, yet once there not compromise, braying the party/partisan line as hard as they can.
Its a crazy world.
Which are you?
Republican: The government should have a say in what is wright & wrong but the government should keep its hands out of the free-markets and individual profit.
Democrat: The government should not try to shape morality whatsoever but it does need to regulate the free-market and the distribution of profits to prevent greed and keep the market fair for all.
Authoritarian: Everyone benefits from government regulation of the markets as well as the using legislation to make sure that the citizens have a moral framework to abide by.
Libertarian: Individuals should be free to make their own decisions on their personal moral convictions. Individuals should also be free to earn an honest living however they like; and spend/give their honestly earned profits any way they like. The Constitution permits the government a very short list of things they may tax for and legislate. Overstepping that amounts to legalized theft and an infringement of individual liberty.
Both parties and pollsters blew up my cellphone this election cycle. I've gotten no less than 3 phone calls a week for the last month.
Voting for someone who doesn't stand a chance of winning is equivalent to not voting in every practical measure.
The design of the political system means that nobody's vote means very much. All candidates who have any chance of winning were purchased prior to the election. And if they ever go back on their word to their financial backers, they are through in politics. Popularity isn't sufficient. It wasn't even sufficient when Teddy Roosevelt got disgusted and founded the Bull Moose party. (And lost.)
What a marginally acceptable candidate running means is merely that the person elected will have views even less acceptable to the majority of the populace. This is something that either Instant Runnoff Voting or Condorcet voting would fix. I think that Condorcet voting is the superior choice, but Instant Runnoff (IRV) is easier to explain.
If all elections went to either of those choices, then over time politics would become cleaner. You couldn't buy a candidate, because there would be too many of them. You'd need to buy a Legislator. That's still cheap, but it's less guaranteed to be successful, and it's more expensive. And it's more public. (Note that this wouldn't be a quick process, and things might get corrupted on a different front while the one front was being cleaned up. So don't believe promises of paradise from ANYONE.)
As it is, however, politics is an auction. And corporations have made things more corrupt than the political parties ever did in the days of "smoke filled rooms".
OTOH, because all candidates are bought ahead of time, the big money isn't interested in fixing the vote. Thus the electronic voting systems are trivially easy to corrupt BECAUSE those who want to do the corruption are low stakes players. If it became important which candidate was selected (to the large financial interests) then things would change, so that only those with lots of backing could corrupt the vote.
Am I too cynical? I don't think so, but then I wouldn't, would I. So I'll acknowledge the possibility that I'm wrong. The only way to tell would be to try the experiment. Even then it would take decades before the results were in.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
American is NOT a true democracy. It doesn't have any room for opposing views. No, democrats and republicans are NOT opposing views. Britain is much the same. ALL parties there now are right wing. You can't have a discussion about how the economy should be run if ALL participants believe in the stock market. If any question that perhaps having speculators control your countries industry MIGHT be a bad idea, becomes impossible with that most horrible insult in the US, socialist. Sooner rape children and kick kittens then question Wall Street.
But it was Wall Street that caused the economic collapse which is hurting America worsed of all. You think Greece got it bad? Not at all, the media won't tell you this, especially US media, but this kinda things happen all the time. It is the way these countries run. France and strikes? The way things are. Only right wing over paid media whores scare up the few people outraged by the strikes and pretend this is how all of France feels about the strikes. For most French, these strikes are the way THEIR democracy with TRUE left and right wing elements works. By clashing and then finally some balance coming in once it has become clear who has the biggest support. Strikes like these are VERY good sign in a democracy. Far better then the US were nobody strikes or protest because they are to worried about their mortage. A nice way to keep the population under control, "do as we say or you will miss your credit card payments and we reposses your house, your car, your flat screen tv". Why do you think right wingers favor home ownership? Renters can just move on, home owners are committed.
Countries like Greece have a different standard of living that makes it far easier to thighten the belt. The family is more important and the kids can just move back in. The grand parents help out. The wife goes to work and parks the kids with the extended family. And nobody depends for their sense of worth on a second car or a huge tv or a house that is far to large. The US? Not so, the worth of an American is his possessions and if the wages go down, then he becomes less of a man. So he lends, but that is breaking down with the banks in turmoil. Greece and France have strikes but in the end, things will adjust, people are just fighting to have the adjustments be fair and not as harsh. In the US, their is rage. Bitter hatred. They have no alternative but switch back and forth between two parties who BOTH favor Wall Street and the banks over real industry and have sold out the American worker for decades.
Look at the Tea Party, how can such a party REALLY claim that the best bet is to go BACK to the republicans who cause the whole economic disaster anyway. And not just the current crash, but the whole reaganomics. Everything from outsourcing to making banks not a servant to the economy but THE economy to the house ownership craze. And their solution in a economic down turn... cut spending.
That is the most foolish thing. Yes it seems a sensible simple reaction but if you CUT spending, you cut spending. Don't get it?
Okay, say the state has 1 million employees who together earn 100 million and spend that on food and housing. Now you are going to CUT spending, so you now have only 100.00 state employees earning 10 million and spending that on food and housing... oh but that ain't the end of it. Those 100.000 now fear for their jobs, so might postpone the purchase of a new tv (made in China) or new car (made in Korea) and keep it... even LESS spending.
BUT you claim, surely the less the state spends, the less taxes it needs to collect so taxes can be lowered and so people have more of their salary to spend? Sure... that works... if any government ever has been able to cut taxes. You see, cutting all those jobs ain't going to be easy. Somebody needs to fire all those people and will want to be paid for it. There are claims to be made and dealt with, the remaining people are going to have to do more work and demand salary increases. If you don't do that, then you migh
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Wow... what a skewed viewpoint!
I know many Libertarians and none of them are particularly well-off financially. In fact, quite a few live more of a "neo hippie" lifestyle, if anything. They believe in things like bartering for goods whenever possible, minimizing use of credit cards or debit cards, and growing their own food instead of trusting big corporate farms to supply everything.
Sure, there are millionaires and billionaires who believe in Libertarian principles. It's not rocket science to realize that government regulations and controls make running a business much more difficult. Those who are the best at building businesses would be the most opposed to such things, since they have the most experience running up against them time and time again - whether or not they became very financially successful in the end, despite them.
But all in all, being a Libertarian really isn't that different than being a traditional conservative Republican, except for a disconnect when it comes to personal freedoms. (Your Libertarian candidate, for example, is not going to support things like the "war on drugs" or side with govt. instead of the individual on a "land rights" dispute.) Even when it comes to such issues as military buildup for the sake of "deterrence", I'm not sure that wouldn't come down to individual beliefs and personal justifications more than a "party line ideology"? Ronald Reagan considered himself a very Libertarian-minded Republican, yet he was obviously a big believer in a powerful military. (And yes, the drug war started with him too -- but most of us realize that had a lot more to do with his wife's urging than anything he was personally advocating.) Other Libertarians would argue the opposite ... that the military should only be used defensively, as needed -- and not maintained constantly as a huge drain on taxpayer dollars.
Honestly though, the Libertarian party suffers from the same problems other independent parties have. You get the nut-cases who sign on because it's a relatively easy chance to say you're "involved in politics", and the people who simply want to undermine the party. (I remember we had some goofball running as a Libertarian candidate around here, some years back, who got his name legally changed to Chief Wannadoobie. Pretty obvious this idiot was just a recreational drug user who thought it'd be a kick to say he was a politician. Wouldn't imagine he even formed much of an opinion on anything outside of wanting to get high legally.....) That's why so many people make the distinction that they're a "small-l libertarian" and not an official card-carrying supporter of the party itself.
Most of the younger people in this landlineless subpopulation do not bother to vote. As a result, the fact that they are not counted in polls is inconsequential.
I see an awful lot of people who say "voting is of no use." The amount of it in these forums is disconcerting. It is little wonder that Obama, the president facing a nation in the worst condition on taking office of most any modern president, is about to have the rug yanked out from under him. This after two years in office trying to do battle with problems that have been created by the legislative excesses of the past decade or so.
You need to vote for candidates you believe will be responsible; failing to do this, you abet the irresponsible. Our zero-attention span attitude towards politics has brought us to the buffoonish specacle we now see of plutocrats with piles of money buying media time and space for lie-filled ads. These cynical individuals are doing this to keep their tax burden low. That means that you, Mr. and Ms. Professional Class, will be borrowing money from the Chinese to fill the gap. Meh, let your kids pay it off.
Americans don't want to be bothered educating themselves about the state of their nation. So they believe a lot of this made-up crap. Election season features enough straw men to choke the Wizard of Oz, and enough red herrings to keep Cannery Row going for millenia.
In America we all expect someone else to do the right thing (not litter, give money to worthy causes, vote responsibly, support our schools and social institutions. pay lawfully due taxes, etc) but we're all too entitled to pick up any of the burden ourselves.
As a result, Americans will get the national decline they deserve. By the way, that means your standard of living is going to fall.
Too goddamned bad.
I'm sitting this one out, and possibly 2012 as well. Voting for the guy or gal that lies the least still means I'm supporting a liar. The very nature of politics nowadays automatically means someone with enough clout to run for election is unfit to serve...
I love the fake premise that I'm voting for someone who "lies the least." Give me a break, even if you disagree with both major parties, they represent different legislative agendas. Example: Is Harry Reid ineffectual as a Majority Leader? Yes. Is he the one promising to kill Social Security and telling girls raped by their fathers to "make lemonade" of the situation? No.
Don't like the candidates in the general? Then get involved in the primaries. Otherwise, STFU.
"I've seen left-leaning folks excoriate Rasmussen as just being a "mouthpiece" of the Right, but in fact, Pollster.com (now part of the Huffington Post) has acknowledged that they have generally been very accurate in the past few election cycles. Why? Because Scott Rasmussen knows how to ... drum roll, please! ... do demographic weighting, accurately determine who is, in fact, likely to vote, correct for cell phone usage and etc., etc."
And those are mutually exclusive why? Rasmussen does two types of polling. One is extremely biased and inaccurate. Basically the "mouthpiece" variety. But it also does some very accurate polling close to the election. That's why is has a poor reputation. They can do very good polling, it's just at times they chose not to.
The real problem with polling is figuring out who is going to vote. And that seems to be a problem this cycle. People are making assumptions of a large Republican wave. And if that assumption is used in most of the polling or most of the polling is done by one agency for much of the cycle (Rasmussen) you tend to create a narrative. It can create reality rather than reflect it. The problem is that no pollster actually knows what reality will look like. They might guess right but that will probably have ended up being a guess.
Polls are starting to be used as the final word on reality. This is really dangerous. Just like reporting the results of elections before polls close, it matters. Polls are becoming weapons. Just another campaign ad. But people don't realize it. Yet another failure of the media.
I would be happy if they would just report *any* number they called but got no answers from (even if it's from not picking up) as a "no response" in the results, rather than filtering these out. I'm guessing you'd see something like,
23% democrat
24% republican
3% other
75% no answer
Not very informative when you see those results, you know?
Information theory is life. The rest is just the KL divergence.
But they often make shit up on the spot.
"Democratic voters more able to avoid annoying pollsters",
or
"Pollsters' last-century polling methods increasingly inaccurate"?
And thus the humor of my original post, and the resulting irony of the discussion is completely lost.
-Rick
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
My god, you are delusional. LOOK up when the economy in the US crashed. Bush was in power. In fact Obama was elected because people couldn't believe the mess Bush had made of things. And now they get the republicans who created the mess back because Obama can't fix decades of mis-management in two years.
This is where I stopped reading. I figure that if you didn't read my post, why should I read yours?
Congress controls the economy. The economy was rocking until the Democrats too control of congress in Jan 2007. Yes, Bush was in the White House, but Pelosi and Reid wrote the budgets. Now you tell me who had more of an effect on the economy.
Oh hell. I don't know why I'm telling you this. You didn't read (or couldn't understand) the first post. I don't think you are capable of reading this one.
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
Just one example, but I have been cellphone only for 10 years. The summary says I should be a young, urban black Democrat, but I am a 46 year old suburban white guy who is somewhere between a Libertarian and a Republican (registered independent, I vote as I wish to rather than by party). Needless to say, the summary didn't leave me hopeful for the accuracy of the story...
All he is saying is that election media coverage is too much about the horse race and the political games, rather than about the issues. e.g. After a debate, commentators are more likely to comment on who scored more political 'points' that night rather than discuss the merits of the arguments the candidates brought up.
He says nothing about restricting speech, the 1st amendment, or government control of the media. He's just criticizing the media, and rightly so.
When someone responds to criticism with, "FREE SPEECH! I HAVE A RIGHT TO MY OPINION!!!11!!!1" To me that tends to mean, 99% of the time, that that person does not have an intelligent response to the criticism of their idea, and so instead they must respond by trumpeting that they have the right to their idea. The fact that they talk about their right to have their idea, rather than the merits of their idea, indicates to me that the merits are either weak or non-existent. We're challenging the ideas expressed in their speech, not their right to say it.
The sooner people see through this sham of a response, the better off we'll be.
" What's so wrong about wanting the person who will be representing me to actually represent me?"
you are only one constituent among many, and you are representing a colossal narcissism in your words. you are holding your vote hostage to an impossible demand, the only effect of which is that person who will actually represent you, will represent less of you than was possible if you only voted. and they will represent you, in reality. i know that in your lofty ivory tower you think you can retire from the world. how selfish of you. you don't represent the high road or a sense of nobility, you represent foolishness
you want the person who is the closest to your ideology. even if very far away, and only slightly closer than the other candidate
if you live forever, and see an infinite number of candidates, they will never represent you, ever, in any democracy, for all possible societies, for all future times. they will represent THEIR CONSTITUENTS, which will be at best an average of the ideologies of their district, and that will never overlap with only you
you are a vain narcissist, and the only real world effects of your choice not to vote is to doom whatever you believe to less representation, and therefore less realization
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
You guys need a choice #5, a silly party. I used to vote for the rhino party, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhino_party until they were forced to disband due to changes in the electoral rules. Their main promise was not to keep any of their promises, and were their promises unkeepable.
Now I vote for the marijuana party to let it be known how I feel about that issue. Unluckily the leader is now a political prisoner in the States.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
with the added bonus, that you rise at least to the moral level of your own underwear
Hang on, I forgot what my point was...
Welcome back, GOP! Who the hell voted for the dem morons anyway! Nice change, eh? How are your portfolios doing? Know anyone out of work? Thanks for several months of decline left-wingers. Wonder how the market will do today??? Damn right this is flame bait! Mod it, liberal nerd. HAHAHAHA!
Proverbs 21:19 It is better to dwell in the wilderness, than with a contentious and an angry woman.
The problem you cite here is principally the result of the Primary Election system we have in the US. Because the parties get together and pick their champions to duel on election day in a winner-take-all gladiator-style matchup, they pick the most extreme candidate they can. Then the country has to choose between two extremes, either one of whom is going to be loathed and detested by half the population. The moderate conservatives and moderate liberals are filtered out by the primaries; we never have a chance to vote for one of them in a general election.
There are gobs of alternatives to this sort of system, but I haven't had a chance to research them all well enough to pick my favorite.