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(15,438 posts)tonyt53
(5,737 posts)INdemo
(6,994 posts)Corporate News Trump supporters pass the crying towel we should be able to witness Trump walking away in handcuffs for
Vote tampering and suppressing the vote attempts.
Wounded Bear
(58,647 posts)Clinton is on a pace to win 30-35 states, maybe more.
It's all good.
treestar
(82,383 posts)I remember a post on DU saying that Trump "just won the election" because of the result of the Brexit vote. It was going to galvanize the white people. This country is not as white as the UK still is.
budkin
(6,699 posts)Not happening
old guy
(3,283 posts)stonecutter357
(12,695 posts)TahitiNut
(71,611 posts)There are two particular ways polling has lost accuracy in ways that impact this particular election season.
First, all the major polling organizations rely on telephone landlines and the shift to cellular phones ONLY has proceeded at an increased rate in the last year or two. It's axiomatic that a "conservative" (guided by the maxim "if it ain't broke don't fix it" is among the last to make such a change. It's also axiomatic that Young Adults transitioning from living at home with their parents (a living situation recently prolonged from historical trends due to economic factors) are among the most likely to shift to INDIVIDUAL cell phone usage from HOUSEHOLD landline usage. The difference between "individual" and "household" has a major impact on polling's statistical methods. Furthermore, the coincidence of acquiring cell phones and disconnecting from landlines has been highly variable. Reliance on landlines for emergencies (911 service), backup (power failures and cellular outages), and cell-less members of a family (children, seniors) has varied greatly as the rationales have become obsolete. The "Millennial" demographic is especially critical this election season and is the LEAST polled.
Secondly, there have always been some who've not been pollable via a landline. The Amish, numbering in the millions, are an example. It's been reported this year, unlike any prior year, that the Amish have been instructed (by the AAB) to vote for Trump. This will have a major impact in such states as Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Indiana where the Amish population is significant, depending on turnout and compliance. In prior election years, there has either been no 'instruction' or they've voted Democratic. Your guess is as good as mine how the polling organizations are dealing with this.
There is, however, one kind of polling that has become critical. That's Exit Polling. It's done person-to-person and doesn't rely on landlines or cell phones. International observers have relied on Exit Polling to assess whether an election has been 'honest' in countries with emerging democracies. It's what the Carter Center, for example, relies upon when providing oversight to elections in other countries. Due to the corporate ownership of media organizations upon whom we've relied for Exit Polling, we're going to see less of it this election than at any time in recent history. This does not give one much confidence in an election when balloting processes are so vulnerable to abuse. We will be left with an even less substantive basis to explain why we see any election result that's widely divergent from our expectations. That's not good for democracy.