lies, damned lies, and statistics

the sorry polls have gotten me down and they really shouldn't, since there are so many things that can be wrong with them---there has already been the suggestion that cell-phone-only people (like myself) are underrepresented in the polling samples---but there are other problems

Some polling experts say the changing state of party affiliation in the field is slow to be reflected in polls themselves. Democratic pollster Anna Greenberg told the Huffington Post that "when it comes to registration and turnout, the polls often do a very bad job of taking those [factors] into account," because newly registered voters aren't in the voter files used by firms that survey public opinion. "You could make the argument they are under-representing new registrants," she said, which would mean that the Democrats new edge would not be taken into account.