Serles 1

Brandie Marie Serles

December 1, 2015
Professor Harrison
Analyzing Inductive Arguments Essay

Election 2012 Public Opinion Polls

Every other four years, its that time again where Americans are trying to figure out who
the next President of the United States will be and yes, that means public opinion polls start to
arise. Public Opinion Polls are samples with specific questions about a specific topic. Most likely
these polls take place with a presidential election campaign to see who we Americans think is
going to win the presidency. Some of these polls consist of the Gallup Poll or even the RAND
Corp. Poll which is what will be discussed about whether one makes a weak support for its
conclusion or a strong one.

Just recently the Gallup Poll came up with reasons as to why their poll was wrong as opposed to
the RAND Corp. They claimed these reasons were because of misidentification of likely voters,
under representation of religion, faulty representation of race and ethnicity, and nonstandard
sampling method. But the property of this poll, as many of the rest, was to determine which
respondents are likely to vote in November when its Election Day. The Gallup Editor in Chief,
Frank Newport explained that their sampling method which was the method of randomly
selected sampling by using numbers from residential telephone directories as opposed to how
Gallup used to do their randomly selected sampling which was by using random digit dialing
which generated random numbers. (Gallup Poll) They decided to go about a new method of
random selection due to the fact it would cut expenses to business lines or numbers that no
longer had a dial but where this idea went wrong was how not many people who had a land line

Serles 2
was mentioned as a listed number. Since this idea of random selection went wrong, Gallup has
now decided to go back to using both land lines and cell phones for sampling. Other
complications that occurred in this poll was the representation of regions and race and ethnicity.
The data for these two factors however, varies. When it came to the regions Gallup had problems
with the different time zone of the Midwest and South. They couldnt interview enough people
within those time zones which caused them to have under sampling states that voted more
Democratic. (Gallup Poll) When came to the factor of race and ethnicity, Gallup had been
using a different method when it came down to racial samples. They categorized their list of
racial and ethnic categories based off what their respondents said. They asked each respondent to
identify their own race individually which caused many of the respondents to label themselves as
multiracial because the United States is made up of more than just one race. Many of us have
more than one racial ethnicity in us. This is where the sample went wrong but now if you ask
Newport, Gallup is changing their ways by now no longer asking racial questions with yes or no
answers in them. The target population of the poll was the population of the United States of
who can vote for presidency, however they wanted to limit it down to just of the people who
would end up voting. There was no known bias standards in this poll, as the Gallup poll
demonstrated all their sampling in a fair manner. They did make mistakes as the poll ended up
being wrong, but that only makes room for improvement. The Gallup poll ended up being a weak
in their conclusion in the 2012 election poll but made up for it by finding what some of their
errors were in the making of the 2012 election poll and is currently working on making their poll
a successful one.

The RAND Corp. Poll conducted their sample a little bit different than the Gallup Poll.
The RAND Corp. Poll sampled their members from an internet based panel of 3,500 Americans
whose purpose was to participate in online surveys. (RAND Corp) This type of sample
conducted their people repeatedly hoping to lead to more stable results as others who random

Serles 3
sampled had new respondents each and every time. They asked questions like, How likely are
they to vote for the candidate of their choice and how confident are they that their person of
choice will win the election? They based their percentage results on two factors: an average of
more respondents say they expect to vote for Obama, but the Romney supporters think they are
more likely to actually go to the polling station. (RAND Corp) The method of sampling
RAND Corp. decided to use was more of a self-selection than random selection due to the idea
that they decided to only use the respondents of the website. So if you werent part of the RAND
American Life Panel then you were not part of the RAND Corp. Poll which is pretty biased and
is an example of biased generalization. They only decided to use the people of the website of
their choice, RAND American Life Panel which only consisted of 3,500 people when the United
States has more than people of that. The amount of only that website cannot determine who will
win the election. The results of the RAND Corp. Poll had used a sampling error which was 2
percent level with a 95 percent level of confidence, although it may vary due to different
outcomes from the website. (RAND Corp) The website RAND American Life Panel was
based off probability samples of the population and includes the respondents of who would
participate in the internet surveys compare to those who wouldnt. Throughout the surveys this
poll concluded that they had more than 300 researchers worldwide to have registered to use the
data from the panels surveys. (RAND Corp) This just showed how the RAND Corp. used
Anecdotal Evidence because RAND Corp. summarized their evidence based on a general
statement. If RAND Corp. would have expanded their samples on more than just based off a
website this poll could have turned out differently instead they decided to be biased and instead
presented their sample in a narrative. The RAND Corp. Poll was very strong in their own ways
but in the conclusion of the poll and based on how they got their polls. In personal opinions, their
evidence doesnt support their samples. The target, of course like the rest, was to see who would
win the election and who would actually vote when election time came.

Serles 4
Throughout both of these polls, Gallup Poll and RAND Corp. Poll they both showed
weak conclusions. Definitely the Gallup Poll more than the RAND Corp. as they found many
errors in their poll such as misidentification of likely voters, under representation of regions,
representation of race and ethnicity, and last but not least a nonstandard sampling method. They
conducted their sample through RDD methodology which is when the sample is consisted of
numbers in residential telephone directories instead of being randomly selected numbers. Their
target however, was to see if they could poll the 2012 election and have their poll be correct.
Unlike the RAND Corp. Poll whose sample was based off a website, known as the RAND
American Life Panel which consisted of only 3,500 respondents. In order to be included in the
poll, who must be a part of the website which showed a form of having biased generalization. To
place both of these polls on a scale from one being very weak to 10 being very strong, I would
give the Gallup Poll a score of 5 just some points for credit of trying and acknowledging where
some of their mistakes might have been calculated wrong. However, the RAND Corp. Poll Id
give a score of 3 because I dont like how they based it off a website. In order to get a good
sample for presidential elections, I think the best way would be to call as other polls use that
method, better known as random selection. It just works better.

Serles 5
Works Cited

Gallup Poll Reveals 4 Reasons It Got The 2012 Election Wrong. Huffington Post. Huffington
Post, 2013 04 June. Web.

RAND Corp. Poll Now Tracking Public Opinion about 2012 Presidential Election. Rand.
Rand, 2012 10 September. Web.