July 29, 2020
The StatChat guide to polls
It’s getting to be that time of the triennium again, so some highlights from past StatsChat posts on electoral polling
- Overview of polling and how it works
- What is the ‘margin of error’ for minor parties: one, two
- Why you can’t predict Epsom from polls
- Why polling is important: your friends aren’t representative
- Survey weighting: why polls don’t massively underestimate the Greens vote.
- The difference between 1 in 20 exceedance of the margin of error and a ‘rogue poll‘
Thomas Lumley (@tslumley) is Professor of Biostatistics at the University of Auckland. His research interests include semiparametric models, survey sampling, statistical computing, foundations of statistics, and whatever methodological problems his medical collaborators come up with. He also blogs at Biased and Inefficient See all posts by Thomas Lumley »