Thursday, September 15, 2016

j reacts to the unusual emerson polling results

these emerson polls are producing very different results. i don''t know why.

it's ivr + landline only.

the last canadian election had a company doing polling with a similar method (ivr) and with the same argument that it "reduces bias" (which is just a guess, really, and not a good one). they consistently had the conservatives five or six points higher than anybody else. and, they ended the election with the worst results.

i don't think that ivr "reduces human bias". rather, i think that what it does is it reduces the sample space and creates a distorted outcome.

their results are just widely deviant. and, i'd be careful with them.

the best polls are with human interviewers. this is very well understood.