Anybody been called for a poll?

[Cure4CF]

Sorry if this has been posted before, if so please merge and or delete.

Not I, my wife, family, friends, or coworkers have been polled. Do you all think they are accurate? In the past, how close have they came to the actual outcome? Any of them more accurate then others? Thanks!

[*bfine32*]

Cannot say if I've been called for a poll or not. I have received quite a few election-type calls, but they never get past the first sentence before they hear my dial tone.

As for accuracy: it depends on the population. I will say I will not be surprised if it is closer than the landslide many are predicting

[NATI BENGALS]

Hung up. I dont trust poll numbers. Who actually does those.

[Belsnickel]

I've never been privy to a pollster calling me. I do, however, understand the methodology. I do think they are as accurate as they can be, but that is always subject to error. It's a part of statistics. They don't hide that there is a chance for error. I usually look into the Real Clear Politics numbers as they take an aggregate. There are others that do as well, 270towin.com does a pretty good interactive map based on averages of polls, and, believe it or not, ESPN's site fivethirtyeight.com has some good stuff as well.

The key is that an individual poll isn't providing you all of the information. You look at trends, you look at who is being polled, and where. This is why we see so many of these polls taking place in an election cycle, because that's what they are looking at, not the results from the individual polls. At least that is what those who understand the nature of these things are looking at.

[GMDino]

Yes.

Not this political season though.

That probably has more to do with a crazier schedule and us not being home has much in the evenings.  But I have gotten the calls and I have participated.

[BmorePat87]

About 0.0003 % of all Americans are polled. Roughly 0.0005% of all voting age Americans.

You'd need to know nearly 200,000 people to know someone who was polled.

[*PhilHos*]

(10-27-2016, 12:00 AM)Cure4CF Wrote: Sorry if this has been posted before, if so please merge and or delete.

Not I, my wife, family, friends, or coworkers have been polled.  Do you all think they are accurate?  In the past, how close have they came to the actual outcome?  Any of them more accurate then others?  Thanks!

I've never really liked polls. I don't believe that they are all that representative of anything other than who was polled. There are what over 300 million people in this country (2 billion if you count the illegals; I kid, I kid)? How is a sample size of like a couple thousand supposed to represent the entire country? Not to mention the ease with which it seems to be able to get the numbers you want (not saying that all or even most polls are heavily biased). There's also no way of knowing if the polled is even telling the truth.

I could go on with more reasons I dislike polls, but I'll stop here.

[*TheLeonardLeap*]

Never before in my life, and a big problem with phone polls now is the fact that only old people have home lines anymore, and barely anyone (and almost zero younger people) answer calls from numbers they don't know on their cellphones.

[fredtoast]

They do seem to get it right most of the time.

[Mike M (the other one)]

I've been polled for the last 4 POTUS elections and randomness (I can't even remember the number of times Bush/Obama wanted to send me to the Bahamas). They ask do you approve of this/that that so-so did. Sometimes when asked who I'm voting for, It hangs up, I'm guessing it's considered a dropped call and they scratch it from the polling lol.

Odd now that I think about it, I haven't been polled this time yet, It's obviously been rigged by Hillary's people.