To expand when doing statistical sampling you want a representative sample of the overall population. Very large scale surveys and the census have indicated that there are more Democratic than Republican voters.
What you would want - equal numbers of Democrats and Republicans, is a false equivalence. That sort of sample does not reflect the population as a whole. Any trends or averages within such a skewed sample would not necessarily reflect similar trends or averages within the overall population. Hunter, Schmidt, and Jackson (1982) provide a very good example. In a Monte Carlo simulation they pulled a series of samples and calculated the population relationship. Those samples that were at significant variance from the population structure tended to have the greatest variability in their estimates of the population relationships. So the changes of a survey artificially boosting the number of Republicans would tend to be less predictive than one structured like the overall population. So seriously what would be more predictive, a cherry picked sample or one that is structurally very similar to the overall population. Hunter, J., Schmidt, F., and Jackson, G. (1982). *Meta-Analysis: Cumulating research findings across studies.*Beverly Hills CA: Sage. On Wed, Jun 5, 2013 at 9:00 AM, Larry C. Lyons <[email protected]>wrote: > No Jerry that is demographics. You know how the over all population is > made up of? > > > On Tue, Jun 4, 2013 at 9:49 PM, Jerry Barnes <[email protected]> wrote: > >> >> "I remember Jerry and Sam proselytizing that the polls were biased to the >> Democrats. They said that the majority of people questioned were >> Democrats, and >> so the polls were all skewed." >> >> The internals for these polls showed over and over again a larger >> percentage of Democrats than Republicans. That is bias. >> >> >> "They mentioned that the 'correct' polls showed Romney winning." >> >> I don't know who "they" is. I didn't mention any correct polls. >> >> >> I'll admit I thought Romney would win. I underestimated the willingness >> of >> Americans to except an real unemployment rate of 20+% and a >> corrupt/incompetent administration. >> >> J >> >> - >> >> Ninety percent of politicians give the other ten percent a bad reputation. >> - Henry Kissinger >> >> Politicians are people who, when they see light at the end of the tunnel, >> go out and buy some more tunnel. - John Quinton >> >> >> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Order the Adobe Coldfusion Anthology now! http://www.amazon.com/Adobe-Coldfusion-Anthology/dp/1430272155/?tag=houseoffusion Archive: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/message.cfm/messageid:364218 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/subscribe.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/unsubscribe.cfm
