At 04:46 PM 12/5/2002, Donald Burrill wrote:
for sure, polling helps (or can) election campaign committees ... things like this provide information that can be used to redirect a campaign effort, etc.> perhaps it is time for us to think about whether we should allow > that to continue ...Indeed.
but, for the general electorate ... HOW DO ELECTION POLLS HELP THEM? that is ... the actual polls showing person X has 45%, person Y has 39%, and person Z had the rest?
or, person X has 42%, person Y has 39% and undecided = 19%
in most situations, i would argue that the poll #s offer the general electorate NO USEFUL IFORMATION ... perhaps in some cases where it appears that there is a large undecided % and if you were leaning on the edge of going to vote or not ... it might spur on those to actually go vote ... but, if that were the case ... they should be going to vote anyway
how do general polls about candidate percentages help "we the electorate" decide on ISSUES and whom might be the better choice?
the more i think about it, the less i see what relevance it has to the task at hand
Cheers! -- DFB (ye olde curmudgeon). ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Donald F. Burrill [EMAIL PROTECTED] 56 Sebbins Pond Drive, Bedford, NH 03110 (603) 626-0816 [was: 184 Nashua Road, Bedford, NH 03110 (603) 471-7128]
_________________________________________________________ dennis roberts, educational psychology, penn state university 208 cedar, AC 8148632401, mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] http://roberts.ed.psu.edu/users/droberts/drober~1.htm . . ================================================================= Instructions for joining and leaving this list, remarks about the problem of INAPPROPRIATE MESSAGES, and archives are available at: . http://jse.stat.ncsu.edu/ . =================================================================
