"A wise and frugal government which shall restrain men
from injuring one another, which shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government."
(Thomas Jefferson)


Saturday, September 26, 2009

Cooking the Polls?

What a shock? NOT! How many other polling companies use bad methodology like polling 45% Dem and 19% Republican? This whole industry is suspect with the fact they tend not to poll in Middle America, but want us to believe it is a poll across the Country. We doubt that a lot of polling companies could withstand an audit of how they poll, but this company seems worse then most.

Source:
http://news.slashdot.org/story/09/09/26/0021250/Math-Indicates-Pollster-Is-Forging-Results?from=rss

An anonymous reader writes "Nate Silver suggests the political pollster Strategic Vision is 'cooking the books. And whoever is doing so is doing a pretty sloppy job.' Silver crunched five years worth of their polling data, and found their reported results followed a suspicious pattern which traditionally suggests fraud. The five-year distribution of the numbers 'is not random. It's not close to random.' The polling firm had already been reprimanded by the American Association for Public Opinion Research for failing to disclose their methodology, though the firm argues they did comply with the organization's request. Their response to Silver's accusation? 'We have a call in to our attorney on this and fully intend to take action that will vindicate us.'"

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