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POLLS_AND_REALITY

                                                     November 17, 2016

Can we trust polling data?

Answer: no.

Should we then just go with our guts?

Answer: hell, no.  Certainly not with my gut.

  This is a year where our expectations
  were all wrong, and barely anyone is
  saying they're sorry.

  Me: I trusted what the polling aggregators say,
  because despite my suspicions about pre-election       It used to be
  polls, they've gotten things right many times          every year I'd be
  when I had trouble believing them.                     staring at the
                                                         polls wondering how
  The polling aggregators essentially point the          it was possible
  finger upstream: if the polls are wrong, it's          they could be
  not *our* fault.                                       right.  Could this
                                                         be the year that
  The polling firms themselves are saying stuff          the old polling
  like "well, maybe stuff changed right before           methodologies hit a
  the election".                                         wall, and they were
                                                         blatantly wrong?
  That in turn leads to still another problem
  in political epistemology: Can we actually             I mean, telephone
  assume that the official election results              polling?  In this
  are accurate?                                          day and age?  I
                                                         never answer the
   Our beloved mainstream                                phone myself, and
   media pundits are                                     many people are
   always quick to sneer    You know, the                switching to
   at suggestions of        pundits.  The folks          cellphones...
   rigged elections, but    who kept telling us
   the fact remains that    Trump was dead.  The         And they're *outraged*
   our voting systems are   one's who figured            by phone spam on
   too complex and have     Bernie wasn't a              cellphones.  If only
   inadequate checks on     Serious candidate.           all communications
   them for anyone to       The people who are           were treated the same
   really trust them.       plunging ahead               way.
                            telling us why what
                            happened, and what's         But the pollsters have
                            going to happen              their tricks to try
                            next, despite doing          to calibrate the data,
                            worse than a                 applying weighting
                            dart-throwing chimp.         factors to compensate
                                                         for skewed populations
                                                         in the people who
                                                         respond.



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