This is really interesting!!!! Good news for Kerry!

[Quixote1818]

http://www.electoral-vote.com/

Pollster Dates Kerry Bush
Ohio University Oct. 3-13 50 44
Ohio University Oct. 3-13 50 45
Ohio University Oct. 3-13 47 48

Look strange? To understand the numbers better you have to understand the polling process. The first poll came from calling households at random and asking if the respondent was 18 or over and a resident of the United States. This filter resulted in telephone interviews with 1022 people. Among this group Kerry has a lead substantially outside the poll's 3% margin of error. After asking about who the respondent planned to vote for, the interviewer asked: "Are you registered to vote at your current residence?" It turns out 15% were not. Once they were removed from the data, we get line 2, the registered voters, where Kerry is still ahead outside the margin of error. Next question was: "Are you certain or almost certain to vote?" Counting only the people who said yes, we get line 3 in the table, what are often called "likely voters." In short, in the adult resident population at large, Kerry is way ahead, but among likely voters it is a statistical tie. For this reason, each party will mount a massive Get-Out-The-Vote drive on election day to turn out their base. In an election as close as this one, the winner will probably be determined by which party does a better job. If you want your horse to win, be sure to vote and strongly urge all your friends, relatives, fellow students, coworkers, etc. to do so, too. Call them on the afternoon of election day to prod them if need be. Since supporting constitutional amendments seems to be "in" these days, I could support one saying that people who don't vote should be stripped of their right to complain about the government afterwords. I believe that Australia has a fine for not voting. This election is too important to sit out.

Now take a look at this:

Newsweek – likely voters (Oct. 31-Nov. 2)
Margin of error +/- 4%

Bush 45%
Gore 43%


Newsweek – all registered voters (Oct. 31-Nov. 2)
Margin of error +/- 4%

Bush 41%
Gore 44%
Buchanan 0%
Nader 5%


I think this is extremely important because ALL these polls among LIKELY voters don't take into account that Gore and Kerry both lead strongly among registered voters and a certain percentage of those who do not call themselves a LIKELY voter are going to show up!!!!!

This is really good news for Kerry!

[wabeewoman]

1. I don't see this as good news

if the democratic voter registrations are being thrown away. Sounds like the bush camp knew this....

[Quixote1818]

2. What does this have to do with voter registrations being thrown away?

Look at the poll numbers for Gore just before the 2000 election. He was down but when you calculated in just registered voters he was ahead. It turned out that the final outcome was in between these two polls suggesting that a large number of unlikely voters showed up which gave Gore the popular vote. The polls did not see this coming. The same thing is setting up to happen with Kerry.