Election Polling

[guywithashovel]

I'll admit, in previous elections, I didn't pay much attention to these things. However, in this one, I've been trying to follow them. It's been pretty much like this.

One poll will say that Romney and Obama are tied.

Another will come out and say Obama is two points ahead.

Another poll will have Romney a point ahead.

Heck, just today, Gallup released a poll (among likely voters, I believe, opposed to among registered voters), that showed Romney six or seven points ahead, but it was pointed out that it was just an average and this and that. Then there was an ABC/Washington Post polll that showed Obama ahead something like 49% to 46%.

Gah! Can we just have the election already? I'm dizzy!

[Andara Bledin]

I don't check individual polls. I let FiveThirtyEight do that for me and sift through the data to boil it down to something useful.

^-.-^

[mikoyan29]

The problem is that the election is going to be close and you are within the error of the polling apparatus.

[wolfie]

Also, how reliable are the polls (as in were the people polled truthful, or lying through their teeth)? Around here, one party has a reputation that when they're in power, government offices will make things difficult for people who have indicated support for other parties (as in, person calls the representative for their riding to get help on an issue where representatives are supposed to help, and they'll basically get "tough shit - you voted for the other guy"). Also, supporters of other parties tend to get their windows broken/tires slashed. Since you can't tell if a poll is being conducted by the media or a political party (this party's pollsters have a reputation of lying about who they're working for), why WOULDN'T someone respond to a poll by saying "I'm voting for Jake Featherston. Freedom!" regardless of who they actually support.

Then you get the shit disturbers (like myself) who try to generate "noise" in the polling results. For example, "I'm voting for the marijuana party - they're the only ones whose platform doesn't make me wonder what they're smoking" - yep, that's an actual party in Canada.

[BrenDAnn]

Yes, it IS a close election. It doesn't help, though, when one of the candidates' sons owns the voting machines in several states! http://www.allvoices.com/contributed...tal-investment

[Greenday]

Yes, it IS a close election. It doesn't help, though, when one of the candidates' sons owns the voting machines in several states! http://www.allvoices.com/contributed...tal-investment

Clearly no conflict of interest there...

[BrenDAnn]

I know, Greenday. I don't know how it can be allowed to happen, and have the race still be called fair...if it ever was at all. I wouldn't care which candidate it was, that sort of thing should not happen.

[Skunkle]

It gets worse. Some guy in Virginia spotted a man dumping recyclables in a trash bin at his building. Didn't want to get fined, so he went to switch it to the correct bin, and found... eight voter registration cards.
The guy dumping was Colin Small, a voter registration supervisor for PinPoint, a company the Republican Party of Virginia hired to handle voter registration. Yup - they were getting voters registered, then trashing the ones they didn't like!

[fireheart17]

So glad that "voter registration" down here is done by an independent party.

Still doesn't stop some people from turning up to the election booths on voting day and claiming to be someone else (long story short, you are required to be registered to vote at age 18 (they can discover your age if needs be) and you are required to at the bare minimum, rock up on voting day (unless you did an early ballot), get your name crossed off and go from there. You can write "I vote for Mickey Mouse" on the ballot and while it won't count, you've at least "voted")

There was a huge scandal here a few years back when people WERE actually doing that. Of course, that could easily be rectified by showing a valid form of ID (you can get a POA card if you can't drive!)

[AccountingDrone]

Been a registered voter everywhere I have lived since I was 18 and first legally allowed to vote. I vote because that way if things go wahooni-shaped, I can at least validly bitch about not having voted for whatever [or admit I screwed up and voted for whomever]

I actually just finished filling out my absentee ballot and sent it in last wednesday. I will admit [though I obviously do not have to] that I did vote for Obama. The idiot republicans have been cockblocking him for 4 years and it is absolutely sickening. I wouldn't vote for Romney if he handed over a briefcase with a million dollars inside it.

[Rapscallion]

You're giving him ideas now...

Rapscallion

[wolfie]

I wouldn't vote for Romney if he handed over a briefcase with a million dollars inside it.

Back when the switch from open outcall elections to secret ballots was made, at least one politician complained about a major flaw in the new system - "Someone can take your money and then vote however he damn well wants". If I were in the U.S., and Romney tried that tactic, I'd cheerfully accept his money and then exploit the flaw in the secret ballot system.

[s_stabeler]

Back when the switch from open outcall elections to secret ballots was made, at least one politician complained about a major flaw in the new system - "Someone can take your money and then vote however he damn well wants". If I were in the U.S., and Romney tried that tactic, I'd cheerfully accept his money and then exploit the flaw in the secret ballot system.

funnily enough, it isn't actually a flaw- when secret ballots were first introduced in the UK, it was pretty common for voters to be blackmailed into voting however the local toff wanted you to, secret ballots meant the toff didn't know where to send their thugs.

[wolfie]

funnily enough, it isn't actually a flaw- when secret ballots were first introduced in the UK, it was pretty common for voters to be blackmailed into voting however the local toff wanted you to, secret ballots meant the toff didn't know where to send their thugs.

It was a flaw from the viewpoint of politicians who used bribes and/or thugs to influence the way people voted. I tend to be rather sarcastic in my posts - personally, I believe it's an important feature. That's one reason I oppose "mail-in ballots for everyone", since with a polling place the poll staff can see that there's only one person behind the screen. With mail-in ballots, who's to say whether a patriarch was "supervising" the of-age members of his family when they filled in their ballots, or that a boss would require employees to bring their ballots to work and fill them out under supervision (see threads about "if Obama wins, this place is closing down")?

[AmbrosiaWriter]

or that a boss would require employees to bring their ballots to work and fill them out under supervision (see threads about "if Obama wins, this place is closing down")?

If I was an employee I would immediately call the local proper authorities (police, election committee, the media!) and inform that this boss was requiring people to do this. The shit storm that would come down on them for it...

I mean have you seen the rage from people against those CEOs who threatened "You might lose your job if Romney doesn't win"? The rage from people at the GoP people denying thousands of people their right to vote? (*stares at Florida*)

An employer requiring this wouldn't be able to keep it secret for very long, and I'm pretty sure that if an employer did that it would be completely against Federal law.