News Hounds

Polling Bias

Reported by Nancy - October 20, 2004 -

How is it possible for any "journalist" to write a paragraph like this, from an AP story posted on CNN.com?

"Young voters were evenly divided between Bush and Kerry in polling conducted this month by Ipsos-Public Affairs for Newsweek.com and The Associated Press. Among likely voters under age 30, Kerry led 52 percent to 42 percent."

Full story at http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/10/19/campaign.draft.ap/index.html

When Bush is up 4 points in a poll, he has a "solid lead", when Kerry is up 10 it's "evenly divided".

Our readers seem to be as annoyed by this kind of bias as I am. So, in the spirit of "fair & balanced", here are 2 humorous takes on the polls. The first is from a satire/parody site called The Spoof. This particular piece was written by "ruthless":

John Kerry Holds Slim Lead over George W Bush in 49 States

The latest polls show that John F Kerry holds a teeny-weeny, slight, barely measurable, 95.5% to 3.2% lead over George W Bush. According to polls taken in recent days by the 3 major networks, the Associated Press, Time & Newsweek magazines, the senator from Massachusetts has what many consider to be a statistically insignificant 92.3% lead over the president. However, infinitely more reliable Gallup & Fox News polls still show Bush holding a commanding 45.1% to 44.9% lead (with a 5% margin of error).

According to the pollsters, who interviewed nearly 100 million people over the weekend, Kerry has the strong support of Democrats, moderate Republicans, Independents, the handicapped, seniors, teens, college graduates, labor unions, veterans, housewives, working women, & professionals. Bush, on the other hand, enjoys rock solid support from survivalists in Idaho, NRA members, fundamentalist Christian Rapturists, gay bashers, Ralph Nader, Senator John McCain, & most of the state of Texas.

According to Ben Dover, a spokesman for the Gallup organization, Bush's poll numbers are likely to rebound strongly as Election Day nears. "We believe that the president's numbers are actually stronger than some other polls might otherwise suggest." He then described Gallup's scientific polling methodology, "First, we apply a "smoothing factor," by not counting half the people who said they will vote for Kerry, while simultaneously multiplying everyone who said they would vote for Bush by a factor of 10. Then, when we have those numbers, we again double Bush's number, while dividing Kerry's in half. And finally, we flip a coin." When asked if this equation tended to favorably skew Bush's support, while also discounting Kerry's, Dover remarked, "Absolutely not! We just know that Bush can't possibly lose in the type of landslide our raw numbers would otherwise be indicating. It's just not possible! Therefore, we always need to "smooth" out our numbers to account for a range of complicated polling issues that might not otherwise be represented in the raw sampling, such as sexual favors and death threats."

When asked how Fox News tabulated its findings, the head of the network's polling unit remarked, "We called Karl Rove & he said that Bush was leading by a commanding margin. So we used his numbers. Why would he lie? I mean, he's the White House Chief of Staff for God sake!"

In other news, early voting was disrupted in several states, including Florida, on Monday as a deadly strain of flu swept through the southeast. Many of the elderly actually keeled over in the parking lots of pharmacies while waiting in vain for vaccinations that were simply not available. At times, the scene got ugly. "This is Bush's fault. Just wait ‘till I vote. I'll kick his useless ass back to Texas where it belongs," remarked Mrs Thelma Partridge. "Look at my poor husband. He's 95 years old, has one lung, one kidney, & is blind as a bat. And they say he's not a priority! What kind of circus are we running in this country?" Another woman, who asked to remain anonymous, remarked, "Good God, it's 100 degrees out here. And they're treating us like animals. Compassionate Conservatives my ass! I'll show that monkey-faced idiot in Washington what I think of him!"

When asked if he thought the unprecedented lack of flu vaccine would work against the president's re-election, White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan remarked, "Not at all. I think seniors know the importance the president places on their votes. Just because we're 50 million flu shots short, doesn't indicate any lack of leadership or mistakes made at the top." When pressed, McClellan snapped, "Hey, it's not like people are going to die over this!"

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And then there's this, from Andy Borowitz:

POLL: AMERICANS EVENLY DIVIDED OVER WHICH POLL THEY BELIEVE
Gallup, Zogby in Statistical Dead Heat

Americans are evenly divided over which presidential election poll they believe, with the Gallup poll and the Zogby poll drawing roughly the same number of likely voters, a new poll of likely voters reveals. In the poll, taken by the University of Minnesota's Institute for Public Opinion, 48% said they believed the Gallup poll and 47% trusted Zogby, a statistical dead heat, says Dr Davis Bevins, who supervised the survey for the Institute. "With just two weeks to go until the election, neither Gallup nor Zogby has broken out," Dr Bevins says. "It is really too close to call."

Perhaps in response to the ever-tightening race between the rival polling companies, the competition between Gallup and Zogby has grown increasingly nasty in recent days, with both companies airing expensive negative television ads attacking each other. In one particularly vicious attack ad, Gallup accused Zogby of "flip-flopping" on whether Senator Kerry or President Bush was ahead in the race. But Zogby soon retaliated with an attack ad of its own, accusing Gallup of having a lesbian daughter.

For his part, Dr Bevins warns that the accuracy of his own poll may be suspect since the voters in the survey were contacted exclusively by phone: "We find that a lot of people are unwilling to answer the phone these days because they're afraid it might be Bill O'Reilly."

Elsewhere, election officials in Florida said that they have encountered a new problem with their electronic voting machines and that the time-code "12:00" will not stop blinking on and off.