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Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wagn'nagl fhtagn ("In his house at R'lyeh dead Cthulhu waits dreaming."). --HP Lovecraft, The Call of Cthulhu

The stars hath turned in the heavens once more: Mighty Cthulhu stirs. His dreams reacheth forth, communing with those with ears to hear. Iä! Shub-Niggurath! His thoughts trample down along the pathways of thy mind; thou knowest His footprints, each of which is a wound...

Friday, September 17, 2004



Great Galluping Goobers

The Left Coaster takes a hard look at Gallup's methodology, and comes up with some disturbing information:
Because the Gallup Poll, despite its reputation, assumes that this November 40% of those turning out to vote will be Republicans, and only 33% will be Democrat.


Some quick math here: Gallup is saying that if they poll 100 Democrats and 100 Republicans, and that they all vote according to their party, then they would report a 40-33 lead for Chimpy™, even though their own internals showed a 50-50 tie.

But that's not enough for Gallup: They actually increase the inaccuracy of their own polling by polling more Republicans than Democrats:

Likely Voter Sample Party IDs – Poll of September 13-15
Reflected Bush Winning by 55%-42%

Total Sample: 767
GOP: 305 (40%)
Dem: 253 (33%)
Ind: 208 (28%)

Registered Voter Sample Party IDs – Same Poll
Reflected Bush Winning by 52%-44%

Total Sample: 1022
GOP: 381 (38%)
Dem: 336 (33%)
Ind: 298 (30%)


Not only is this a back-door kind of push-polling, but voting history shows that their assumptions of Republican/Democrat voter turnout is just plain wrong:
If we look at the three last Presidential elections, the spread was 34% Democrats, 34% Republicans and 33% Independents (in 1992 with Ross Perot in the race); 39% Democrats, 34% Republicans, and 27% Independents in 1996; and 39% Democrats, 35% Republicans and 26% Independents in 2000.

So the Democrats have been 39% of the voting populace in both 1996 and 2000, and the GOP has not been higher than 35% in either of those elections.


And that's really fubar: Gallup has a long and exalted history, but now they can't be trusted by either Republicans or Democrats, no matter who they show ahead. If Republicans really think that their man is ahead by 13pts, they'll slack off and then get blindsided by Chimpy's™ loss in November (not that I'd mind, obviously). The converse is true of Democrats, of course.

So where does Gallup gain from their funny-numbers? Well, if they can discourage the Democrats from bothering to turn-out to vote, then their man may actually win. And I say "their man" because Gallup's CEO, James Clifton, is a staunch Republican.

But the cat is out, now; how Gallup responds to the outing of their newfound lack of integrity will be interesting to watch -- as long as you remember to ignore the numbers they report between now and November no matter who they show is winning.


Posted by: Great Cthulhu / <$BlogItemDateTime $>
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