With the presidential election next week– and the media’s obsession with polling, even to the point of wondering if Hurricane Sandy will make it harder to poll (as if that’s an issue the millions of people affected by the storm are concerned about in this moment)– there has been a lot of discussion about the polling results as well as the methodology. Why do polls differ? Is there a bias? Are polls used to influence voting? What about cell phones? Why do pollsters weight the data and can that be used to alter the results intentionally? Can polls be trusted?
Scott Keeter, Director of Survey Research at PEW’s Research Center was on C-SPAN’s National Journal and explained how polling is done. Great information.
C-Span Video Interview with Scott Keeter
October 30, 2012
Another pollster– Nate Silver–is worth checking out.FiveThirtyEight Blog
Silver has been the center of the political infighting about polling results. See this article from US News and World Report: …the war on Nate Silver
Diane Rehms also had a show on polls on NPR on October
Transcript can be found at: Understanding Political Polls