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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
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?
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.
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.
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.
"Now, there's one thing you might have noticed I don't complain about: politicians. Everybody complains about politicians. Everybody says they suck. Well, where do people think these politicians come from? They don't fall out of the sky. They don't pass through a membrane from another reality. They come from American parents and American families, American homes, American schools, American churches, American businesses and American universities, and they are elected by American citizens. This is the best we can do folks. This is what we have to offer. It's what our system produces: Garbage in, garbage out. If you have selfish, ignorant citizens, you're going to get selfish, ignorant leaders. Term limits ain't going to do any good; you're just going to end up with a brand new bunch of selfish, ignorant Americans. So, maybe, maybe, maybe, it's not the politicians who suck. Maybe something else sucks around here... like, the public. Yeah, the public sucks. There's a nice campaign slogan for somebody: 'The Public Sucks. Fuck Hope
I don't vote. Two reasons. First of all it's meaningless; this country was bought and sold a long time ago. The shit they shovel around every 4 years *pfff* doesn't mean a fucking thing. Secondly, I believe if you vote, you have no right to complain. People like to twist that around – they say, 'If you don't vote, you have no right to complain', but where's the logic in that? If you vote and you elect dishonest, incompetent people into office who screw everything up, you are responsible for what they have done. You caused the problem; you voted them in; you have no right to complain. I, on the other hand, who did not vote, who in fact did not even leave the house on election day, am in no way responsible for what these people have done and have every right to complain about the mess you created that I had nothing to do with.”
-George Carlin
And even if it weren't WHY THE FUCK IS POLLING ALL THEY TALK ABOUT? Paying attention to the news will tell you 1. Who is running 2. How likely they are to get elected 3. If they are having sex with someone who isn't their spouse 4. What their opponents are saying about them, in order of most to least information.
Not on there: their history or what they will actually do (if anything) when elected. Who do I vote for, the guy who's likely to win? Because that's about the only thing you'll get from the news.
How a candidate is polling is of interest to the candidate and his staff, and to people who already know who they are voting for to either say "Ha ha, we're going to win!" or "Damnit, we're going to lose!" To everyone else, it should be trivial information.
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
I'm afraid quoting George Carlin isn't relevant to me. This attitude of "I didn't vote, so I'm not responsible for who gets elected" is complete BS. You are just as responsible for the people who voted for them because you are a part of the silent majority qho sits around on the hole all the time and is annoyed by who actually gets elected. Get up off your hole and vote who you think is the best candidate, if you don't like your options get involved and perhaps even run yourself. But this attitude of "I'm above all that" is pie the sky at best and dangerous at worst
There is no -1 disagree
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.
That's great. Exactly the opposite of my experience, but it probably depends on where you live. I live in a town with a pretty strong liberal majority, so nobody ever goes around spouting anything about it. It is the more conservative types who go around telling everyone within earshot how conservative they are (but you're right, it does tend to be the younger ones - I think because they are so excited about being all "rebellious" going against their liberal parents).
Come to think of it, it may actually be the independents that are the worst in this respect (but around here independents are usually conservative, so same difference).
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 understand your sentiment but polling is free speech. Someone should be free to ask, and others should be free to answer, or not. If someone does ask a bunch of people a question, they should be free to share those results. If there is a chunk of the population that is too stupid to filter those results or understand what they may or may not mean - then the solution is education not the restriction of speech.
It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
-1 Idiocy
Whether statistical models are good predictors of future outcomes should be a topic near and dear to every slashdotter. Bringing this up in the context of a midterm election is not "wishful thinking"-- it's an interesting problem.
The difference between your anecdotal story and the one in the article is that the effect the author is talking about is a statistical one, and he cites evidence to support his position. Regardless if the outcome of the current election cycle, if real, this is an effect that polling organizations will have to account for.
As a result of the 2000 election, hundreds of thousands of people died.
And to you, it's the same as a TV show.
Why, exactly, should it surprise you when we're left with only lousy politicians?
So you only want to vote for the person you think is going to win?
I voted this morning. Most of the people I voted for were never mentioned on the news, in the papers, and most people don't even know about them. I did my research, found the person I liked and I voted for them even though they are likely to win. Waste of time? I think not. Every time I vote that's one more little bit of the percentage of being recognized.
Every time I start to have faith in humanity, I ruin it by driving to work between 7 and 8 am.
You could in theory vote democrat until the republicans become so marginalized they are forced to become "republican-lite".
Personally, I'd vote Republican in a snap if they weren't so pushy about legislating morality.
"I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
-Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
Vote for Kang!
When you vote, you legitimize the process.
I've never understood this argument.
The people in power never cared that only 40% of the people vote and in fact it shows that if no one bothered to come to polls to vote against them, then it most likely occurs to them that they should keep doing the things they way they want to.
I mean... People who can't be bothered to vote won't likely be bothered to go into the streets to protest either, much less take arms up against a legitimate government.
"I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
-Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
Personally I think Carlin actually did vote but wrote that routine because he figured:
People who would take political advice from a comedian probably shouldn't be voting anyway!
Warning: This sig is not thread safe. For more information see Slashdot's sig policy.
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
As a result of the 2000 election, hundreds of thousands of people died.
And to you, it's the same as a TV show.
I was assured as a result of the 2008 election, we would end two wars, bring em all back home, close our concentration camp in Cuba, and implement a REAL federal medical plan. Nothing happened. Correct, to me its the same as a TV show, its gonna turn out the same regardless if I "participate" or not.
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
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.
You were assured by whom? Obama always made it clear that he supported the Afghanistan war but not the Iraq war. He's fulfilled his promise to withdraw from Iraq in a rapid by responsible way. He's also fulfilled his promise to invest more in the Afghanistan war and try to turn it around. The left in the U.S. must be deaf because Obama was loud and clear. Obama also tried to close the prison in Guantanamo Bay but he was blocked by Congress. He's President not Dictator, so there are limits to what he can do. He did not promise to set the terrorists free so what alternative did Congress give him? Now if you don't vote you will prove to the Republicans and conservative Democrats that they were right to stop Obama from closing Guantanamo and right to oppose him on health care and everything else he's tried to do. As a non-voter you will have the same effect on the outcome as a conservative Republican voter. You are what the GOP and the Tea Party hope for. Instead of slow progress we will regress.
Very often, people confuse simple with simplistic. The nuance is lost on most. - Clement Mok
. Nothing happened.
Correction: nothing positive happened. Plenty of happened: we've got troops in foreign lands where we have 'officially' ended the wars and combat operations entirely; we're wasting millions of US taxpayer money trying Gitmo combatants in civil courts; we've dedicated trillions to a healthcare system which will bankrupt employers and be unaffordable to citizens.
As an added bonus, we've also nationalized the banks and one of the largest automotive makers in the country. We've inflated the dollar to the point of being worthless and have continued to accelerate the rate of borrowing from China.
I've seen this TV show, except I saw an earlier visioning of it. I think it had something to do with Germany or Italy in the 1930s - I can't quite remember. (Argentina in 2000 is a good enough example as well.)
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
So what you're looking for is a financially conservative party that doesn't give a crap about what you do for entertainment, as long as those involved are consenting adults.
Is that correct?
Aren't those people called "libertarians?" I hear that they actually do exist. You can vote for them, and if their isn't a libertarian on the ballot in your district, then you could run yourself.
You don't have to win the election to make a difference: Ross Perot and Ralph Nader have both demonstrated that third party candidates can have a huge impact in the result even when they don't win.
(BTW: "You" in this post doesn't refer to Beardo even though I'm replying to his post)
The President isn't actually all that powerful, but what he does have can be used effectively.
The problem is, the past few have been supremely good at drawing attention - "Only six people in the Galaxy knew that the job of the Galactic President was not to wield power but to attract attention away from it", and "anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job", respectively. (Thanks to the late, great Douglas Adams).
What you really want is divided government. "Ambition must be made to counteract ambition." The whiny partisan asswipes will scream "waah gridlock", but the BEST thing we can have is for only those things which both parties manage to agree on happening. Remember, 99% of the real business of governing happens not in the President's office, but instead in Congress. In this respect the most powerful person in our government is the Speaker of the House, who can single-handedly ensure that a proposed bill never sees the light of day.
Where it goes to pot is when the majorities in Congress, Senate, and then the President are all from the same party.
Look at the times we've been fucked in the last three decades. Jimmy Carter had a Democrat congress and nearly doomed us all. Bill Clinton, for his first two years, almost did what Obama has done to us now. Most of the people on this site are probably too young to understand how truly horrible both of those time periods were.
Shrub 43 is an oddity. For his first couple years, there was a major crisis. Then, "dealing with" that major crisis, his advisers convinced him and Congress to run around spending like drunken sailors.
When it came time to be a lame duck, Shrub 43 may as well have been a democrat. Count up the number of vetoes he issued once the Democrats took congress following the 2006 elections and it's pretty clear he was nothing but a joke. Effectively, Pelosi and Reid were running the country even before they got an official rubber-stamper put into the White House.
Of course, this kind of crap is why George Washington warned us about forming political parties at all in his farewell address: political parties effectively take the checks and balances system and make it meaningless unless the people are smart enough not to let one party get hold of House, Senate and Presidency all simultaneously. It's a damn shame nobody listened to him.
According to wikipedia you are incorrect. Please forgive the formatting, I dont think slashcode will let me drop a table in my comment.
Fiscal year Value % of GDP
2001 $144.5 billion 1.4%
2002 $409.5 billion 3.9%
2003 $589.0 billion 5.5%
2004 $605.0 billion 5.3%
2005 $523.0 billion 4.3%
2006 $536.5 billion 4.1%
2007 $459.5 billion 3.4%
2008 $962.2 billion 6.6%
2009 $1785.6 billion 12.5%
2010 $1471.0 billion (est.)10.0%
What part of "shall not be infringed" is so hard to understand?
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.
The fiscal years and presidential terms overlap. As such, that means that a president can spend massive amounts his last few months and blame it on the next president. War expenses and government bailouts by Bush were a majority of the 12.5% in 2009. The first full year of Obama was lower than the last year's budget passed under Bush.
Not that I'm claiming either of them was competent. I'm just making sure when listing either of their long list of flaws, that they are accurately represented. Well, unless you are one of those strict Constitutionalists that hypocritically asserts that Obama should have unconstitutionally ignored Bush's last budget, in which case I'm calling you a hypocritical ass.
Learn to love Alaska
First - FORD pardoned Nixon. Carter didn't. So your whole first paragraph is raw idiocy.
Obama has not wreaked this economy upon us, the Bush administration and the prior Congress did.
"The prior Congress" - you mean the one Obama was a part of as a US Senator, when Obama voted for every last one of the fucked-up policies that said Congress passed and Shrub43 signed...
Clinton fixed a broken economy,
Please, do tell me what alternate reality you came from. The economy was already on the mend well before Clinton got elected, just too late to save Bush41.
Between being scared to death of Hillarycare and reeling from Clinton's tax hikes, the economy took another nosedive until 1994. And that we can blame squarely on Clinton and the Democrats he had in Congress.