12 theSun | WEDNESDAY NOVEMBER 5 2008

news without borders

U.S. voters do not directly elect their

US pollsters’
president and vice president. Instead, in not truly reflect opinion when they
all states except Maine and Nebraska*, were carried out.
the candidate who wins the popular vote
is allotted electoral votes – representing Of course, polls can be wrong,
the population size of each state – in the even in snapshot mode. “Humility
538-member Electoral College. The is built into our DNA,” Jon Cohen,
candidate who wins a simple majority
of electoral votes wins the presidency The Washington Post’s director
of polling, wrote in his paper on

moment
REPUBLICAN: John McCain / Sarah Palin DEMOCRATIC: Barack Obama / Joe Biden Sunday.
“The mathematics of the
Solid McCain Leaning McCain Battleground states Solid Obama Leaning Obama random sample on which all
Wisconsin 10 Michigan New Hampshire 4 Massachusetts polling is based says that five
Minnesota 10
17
Pennsylvania Vermont
12 times out of 100, we will be badly
Washington 21 3
Maine
off the mark.”
11
North
4 His biggest worry is whether

of reckoning
Montana
3 Dakota West these samples are truly random:
Oregon 3
7
Virginia
New “What if people who pause to
5
South York take a pollster’s question are
Idaho Dakota 31
4 Wyoming 3
significantly different from those
Rhode who don’t?”
3 Island 4
Iowa D.C. 3
Nebraska 7 Ohio Pollsters call the phenomenon
Nevada 5 Illinois Indiana
5 21 11
20 Connecticut 7 “differential nonresponse”, and,
Utah
LONDON: Many people will be for a similar 5 Colorado Virginia according to Cohen, it’s “a live,
holding their breath as tonight’s disaster now? 9 Kansas Missouri Kentucky
13
New Jersey 15 practical concern”.
6 11
election results come in – but none The answer is, California 8 In a sense, it’s a version of the
55 Delaware 3
more so than America’s pollsters, most probably not. Tennessee celebrated (and much disputed)
Oklahoma
whose near-unanimous prediction For one thing, the Arizona New 7 Arkansas 11
Maryland 10 “Bradley Effect” whereby polling
10 Mexico 6
of a Barack Obama victory recent track record 5 North Carolina 15
is said to overstate the vote a black
Georgia candidate receives on election day.
would, if wrong, be the biggest of the final pre- 15
Hawaii The explanation advanced is
embarrassment since well, since general election 4 Texas South Carolina 8
they messed up in New Hampshire polls is very good. 34 that people lie to pollsters because
just 10 months ago. When averaged they do not want to appear racist.
As an underdog candidate, John out, they were spot Alabama Instead, it may rather be that
9 Florida 27
McCain insists that the public on in 1992, 1996 potential anti-black voters are
Electoral College Louisiana 9 Mississippi 6
polls, which give the Democrats a and 2004. In 2000, Alaska 3 under-represented in the sample.
votes needed to win
lead of close to double digits, are however, most Conceivably, this might be
vastly overstating his opponent’s put George Bush Toss up a factor that helps McCain’s
advantage. slightly ahead, Electoral count McCain 132 128 Obama 278 Republican contest against an
What happened in the days when the reality *Maine and Nebraska both use an alternative Congressional District Method to distribute their electoral votes
African-American.
before the New Hampshire was that he lost the Source: www.realclearpolitics.com – polls taken on November 3 © GRAPHIC NEWS Poorer and less-educated
Democratic primary on Jan 8 is popular vote to Al whites, who tend to be less well
Exhibit A in his case. Gore by 0.6%. disposed towards blacks, are also
In the run-up, surveys put Today’s polling techniques do not distort the picture. general elections, the race tightens harder to reach by phone than
Obama, fresh from his win in the are extraordinarily sophisticated, But polls are not perfect. It is in the final days of the campaign. better educated and richer people.
Iowa caucuses, ahead by a steadily winnowing out likely voters from often forgotten that they are not New Hampshire came just five That is one reason, Cohen
widening margin. On the day registered voters, and running predictions of the future. Their days after the caucuses in Iowa, wrote, that “although I don’t think
however Hillary Clinton beat him, parallel samples using only mobile function is to produce an accurate leaving the polls no time to pick we’ll get bitten, I’ll be a little
and in doing so kept her campaign phone users, to make sure that the snapshot of public opinion at a up a late swing towards Clinton. worried until it’s all over.” – The
alive. Could the polls be heading landlines mostly used by pollsters given moment. In the majority of But that does not mean they did Independent