Looking over the full 60-week set, the variance in the reports was only 9.947. To calculate how unlikely that is, we need to use a standard tool, a chi-squared distribution, in this case one with 59 degrees-of-freedom. The probability of getting such a low variance via regular polling is less than one in 10^16, i.e. one in ten million billion.posted by jtron at 12:49 PM on June 29, 2010 [1 favorite]
Emphasis mine. Likely? Really, that's the bold stand you want to take. Even if all of these allegations turn out to be 100% false, I'd really like to think that something like this would definitely prompt serious real journalists to have serious real discussions. Seriously.
Full disclosure: This blog, like Post blogs, regularly linked to Research 2000 polls, because the firm has been on the Post's "approved" list. Like I said above, this is likely to prompt a serious discussion about whether news orgs should be doing more to vet the polling they commission or publish
So it's "Fuck Markos" because he changed his mind on the health care bill, or because he didn't agree with you at one step of the process?
From what I know of Markos, he seems a decent sort.
December 2009 - Insurance companies win. Time to kill this monstrosity coming out of the Senate.
March 2010 - The fact is, this does a heck of a lot for a lot of people. ... . And if somebody like Kucinich wants to block that, I find that completely reprehensible. ... What he’s doing, he’s undermining this reform. He’s making common cause with the Republicans. And I think that’s a perfect excuse and a rationale for a primary challenge.
Fuck Markos. Seriously.
posted by Joe Beese at 3:03 PM on June 29 [1 favorite +] [!]
function MakeRandomFavorableStats() {
int menApprove = Round(46 + GetRandomFluctuation());
int menDisapprove = Round(43 + GetRandomFluctuation());
int menUnknown = 100 - menApprove - menDisapprove;
// ... same code for womenApprove, womenDisapprove, womenUknown
}
function Round(float numberToRound) {
static bool roundUpThisTime = false; // Don't round in the same direction every time! Might be suspicious.
roundUpThisTime = !roundUpThisTime; // Each time we get called, round in the opposite direction
if(roundUpThisTime) {
return floor(numberToRound);
} else {
return ceiling(numberToRound);
}
}I used to work a different major polling company, and I can assure you R2K is not alone in just making up numbers. Easily 80% of surveys that went through my region were completely falsified, and the remaining 20% rarely matched the demographic they were supposed to be answering for. Survey administrators have quotas, and then get paid extra for additional surveys past that, but there is basically nothing done to verify any of the surveys turned in, and everybody in the company knows it. Don't always trust what you read, especially not statistics.posted by alms at 6:54 PM on June 29, 2010 [1 favorite]
"'I can tell you, we're fine. What we're going to reveal, that will be the end of the Daily Kos,' Ali said. 'I can say, it has to do with people owing money.'"So, the alleged money issue seems to be the tack they're taking. Obfuscation, indeed!
"A longtime reader makes some good points:posted by ericb at 11:13 AM on June 30, 2010 [1 favorite]Jonah,
I don't know about you, but I can't believe that so many people are giving Kos credit - even calling him laudible - in this situation. According to Nate Silver, Kos has known for most of the year that there were serious questions about his pollsters, yet he let that too-good-to-be-true (from his point of view) anti-Republican data sit out there unquestioned for months.
The only reason Kos acted when and how he did was because he was over a barrel - the independent report was going to come out one way or another, so he had to act quickly to retain a veneer of respectability for himself. If he was really a selfless man committed to the truth, shouldn't he ask OEN to take down the R2K-based op ed he wrote trumpeting the awfulness of all things and persons Republican? Shouldn't he submit a new op ed in order to reach the wider audience who has seen his bad polling but has not seen the polling retraction?
The fact of the matter is, Kos has been - and continues to be - content to let the negative assumptions based on his published data remain in the air for as long as possible. He knew almost as soon as he first published it that this R2K anit-GOP numbers would come into question. He could have retracted it at any time, but he chose to let that bad data sit out there for months, causing as much damage as possible until he had absolutely no choice but to act.
I think this entire deal makes him look even more odious than he ever has."
"Research 2000 came to our attention in 2008, when its pulse-taking in Missouri yielded curious results.posted by ericb at 11:18 AM on June 30, 2010
Missourians picked a new attorney general in '08. One month before the August primary, Research 2000 said Jeff Harris was the Democrat to beat. Harris led the next closest competitor, Chris Koster, by 10 percentage points, in a Research 2000 poll.
Harris ended up finishing third, behind Koster, the winner, and Margaret Donnelly. (Koster won the general election, as well.)
Asked about the poll in the wake of very different results, Research 2000 president Del Ali shrugged.
'To be honest, I'm not concerned, like, "Where did we go wrong,"' Ali told me in 2008. Ali said it was 'ludicrous' to expect precision from a poll that had asked about down-ballot candidates a month in advance of an election.
Working on behalf of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and KMOV-TV, Research 2000 also sampled Missouri voters' preferences in the presidential race. A Research 2000 poll in July showed Barack Obama leading John McCain by five percentage points.
It was a startling finding. Other polls taken at around the same time showed McCain-Palin leading the race for Missouri's electoral votes."
Ali's first employment in the polling world was at the firm Mason-Dixon, where he was a vice president from 1990 to 1998. He says he did sales there as well as "a lot of the stuff I do now."I've long suspected Mason-Dixon polls weren't entirely on the up-and-up. That outfit's past associations with this Ali character doesn't do anything to ease those misgivings, from where I sit.
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posted by kalessin at 12:11 PM on June 29, 2010