Elections and polls

[duke63]

Last UK election - Pollsters got it badly wrong

Brexit - Pollsters got it badly wrong

US election - Pollsters got it badly wrong.


There is a theme here with only 3 possible explanations

1. The voters being asked tell a lie.
2. The poll company are asking to small a sample.
3. The elections are fixed.


So what do you reckon is the most likely explanation?

[Kwacky]

I reckon you get a lot of "don't know" or won't say from people who are taking the unpopular vote (I mean unpopular in the social media sense)

I also think there's a bit of a backlash by people being told what they should and shouldn't do. It's almost a protest vote.

[TonyB]

Pollsters getting a backhander to print false information. If it's in the mainstream media it must be true so may as well go with the majority sort of mentality.


No where's my tinfoil hat?...


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Monty]

Assuming you mean pre election poles and not exit poles, most are done over the phone. Only a curtain demographic either has a land line or bothers to answer it, most are just there for the broadband connection these days. Also when you call you normally ask to speak to the home owner so that rules out a lot of the younger generation. There's a lot of 18 to 30 years olds still living at home with their parents these days.

[D41]

So what do you reckon is the most likely explanation?

That pollsters are not to be trusted??


But yes...I think they tend to put "don't know" for anything NOT in favour of the person who is paying them. I would.

OR...

"You got how many Democrat polls?? Where were all the Republicans??"
"At work....".

[duke63]

So nobody thinks they might be fixed?

[Monty]

At the end of the day a pole is normally around a thousand people out of in our case around 40 million. How you go to them has a massive impact on which demographic you pole.

[Deegee]

Hmm, my guess is they aren't fixed to the point of radically changing the outcome - if someone had gone to the trouble to fix a complete election, I can't believe they wouldn't have fixed the polls as well, makes the election result more believable for a start.

I suspect the reality is that:
1, pollsters are seen as part of the same establishment as politicians and are there to be mistrusted and lied to.
2, pollsters are asking too narrow a demographic which is radically skewing their results.

After all, everyone hates being door stepped, tele-canvassed or stopped in the street, it's not a popular job being a pollster, so if they ask "safe" people like themselves it's not surprising their polls are wrong tbh.

[D41]

So nobody thinks they might be fixed?

Fixed is maybe too strong a word...perhaps 'weighted' would be better??....and by that I mean the manner in which things were reported. The press here are very much in the Democratic camp as a rule...but that works both ways, or at least it seems so this time round.....Trump garnered MASSIVE attention over here. And the Democrats have just had two terms in office...people perhaps just wanted something different??


Either way, Clinton lost in a BIG way...that must have been embarrassing both for her, and for her campaign managers. Plus she was simply carrying a lot of baggage from her husband's tenure, and for some glaringly poor errors she made as Sec.State. There's been other rumours about her for years, too...they're probably best left well alone.