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Strength In Numbers: How Polls Work and Why We Need Them

A first look at my upcoming book (which is really just as much about democracy as it is about polls)

G. Elliott Morris | December 2, 2021

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Surveys as tools

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Surveys as tools

... for what? sociology?

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Surveys as tools

... for what? sociology?

democracy?

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Surveys as tools

... for what? sociology?

democracy?

Can we use polls to measure what people actually want, and then have the government do whatever that is

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Surveys as tools

... for what? sociology?

democracy?

Can we use polls to measure what people actually want, and then have the government do whatever that is

(... conditional on it being reasonable, thought-out, and “good” — which we will get to later)

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Strength in numbers

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Strength in numbers

  1. Arithmetic
  2. Democratic
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Strength in numbers

  1. Arithmetic
  2. Democratic

(Actually we're gonna tackle these in reverse order)

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Public opinion and the state

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“A man may not be able to make a poem, but he can tell when a poem pleases him. He may not be able to make a house, but he can tell when the roof leaks. He may not be able to cook, but he can tell whether he likes what is prepared for him. “

— Aristotle

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“Public opinion sets bounds to every government, and is the real sovereign in every free one.”

— James Madison

“Where the law of the majority ceases to be acknowledged, there government ends, the law of the strongest takes its place.”

— Thomas Jefferson

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Polls as a rolling referendum

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The birth of the poll

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Polls today

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Polls today

The same as they ever were?

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Polls today

The same as they ever were?

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Not so fast...

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Why polls off in 1948?

1. Late change

2. Selection bias from interviewers?

3. Missing weight? Education, etc

There had been a residual pro-R bias for years...

Solution?

SSRC says.... Random sampling

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After 1952...

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After 1952...

(Gallup's) Polls used quotas

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After 1952...

(Gallup's) Polls used quotas

But interviews were (more) randomized

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After 1952...

(Gallup's) Polls used quotas

But interviews were (more) randomized

And attempted a partisan balance by geogprahy

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1970: "Design-based" polls

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What do we do when we have doubts about the accuracy of an entire mode of data collection?

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What tweaks to the survey process could we make to increase the representativeness of respondents, conditional on having low response rates?

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Mister P

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Polls in 2016 and 2020

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2016: Education weighting

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2020: Partisan non-response

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The future?

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The future?

- CNN, Pew and others shifting to "address-based" sampling

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The future?

- CNN, Pew and others shifting to "address-based" sampling

- Success of mixed modes

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The future?

- CNN, Pew and others shifting to "address-based" sampling

- Success of mixed modes

- But a lot more work to be done...

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Bias in election forecasting

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Bias in election forecasting

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If polls are biased, the models will be too

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The next 90 years

Think less about prediction and more about communication

  • Polling is an uncertain science
  • Aggregation and forecasting hasn’t achieved the level of communication we wanted
  • So we must emphasize uncertainty
  • And the normative value of polls
  • So that we can continue to use them to give a voice to the peopel
  • Which is why they were really popularized in the first place
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One more thing...

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One more thing...

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Thank you!



Website: gelliottmorris.com

Twitter: @gelliottmorris




These slides were made using the xaringan package for R. They are available online at https://www.gelliottmorris.com/slides/

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