Polling and voting

Poll types

Straw poll

Gallop

Random digit dialing

Literary digest poll

Internet

entrance and exit

Tracking and benchmark polls

Push polls

Straw polls

Gauge support on applause

Gallop

George gallop determined how use statistics to predict things with polls

Random digit dialing

Phone call random numbers but this causes sampling error

Literary digest poll

Used for FDR election where only those with phones and cars were polled VERY INACCURATE

Sampling error

Degree of confidence in accuracy of the poll (INTERVAL SHOULD BE 3)

Filter questions

Few starting questions that determines if someone is eligible to answer

Minimum sample size

1000 people

Internet polls

Try to avoid phone numbers b/c people think their scams so this is a solution

Issue is people who aren’t eligible can share their opinions. Also, people can be polled multiple times

entrance and exit polls

Get asked while entering or leaving the physical polling location

Most accurate poll especially exit polls

Tracking/benchmark

Benchmark (how you feel initially about a candidate)

Tracking (same group of people, same time, same questions, to track how opinion has changed)

Push polls

Technique (not poll) shady skill used by politicians to influence

Looks like a poll but questions are phrased to make one candidate seem worse

Problems with polling

Wording of question

Standardizing the interview

Those being questioned are un knowledgeable

Events can cause drastic change in opinion

Bradley effect

Cause politicians to follow rather than lead

Bradley effect

People won’t answer honestly out of fear of judgement

Linkage institutions

Allow politicians to know what the people want and allow the people to see what politicians are doing

Media, political parties, polling, interest groups, elections

Media bias

Workers for media tend to be more liberal

News commentary vs news reporting

-bias

-entertainment

-talking ABOUT news

Moderating factors on news REPORTING bias

Professional training

Deadlines leave little time to find time to put purposeful bias in

Desire to attract a broad audience

Selective exposure/comfirmation bias (people only watch what they agree with)

Options

Familiarity (more knowledge leads to less bias)

Little substance leads to little bias

Corporate bias is cause for any media bias

Narrow casting

Intentionally catering to a specific audience is HIGH BIAS

Looks like news but ain’t

FCC

Federal communications committee

Regulate airtimes

Equal time rule

Sell advertisement for the same price, same time slot, to all candidates

Fairness doctrine

No longer in affect fut if someone was on a program w/ a clear political leaning, the other side must also be present

Roles of media

Gate keeper

Score keeper

Watchdog

Gatekeeper

Decided what is important to report on (bias has largest impact)

Scorekeeper

Report politics as a horse race rather than discussing the policy

Watchdog

Media uncover corruption (investigative journalism)

BEAT

What a journalist specializes in

Sunshine laws

Gov meetings must be public

Internet impact on news

Local news were destroyed and now local corruption is very apparent

Shield laws

Journalists can hide their sources

Media event

A staged event made by politicians to get coverage

Trial balloons

Intentional leak

Wire services

Newspaper pay for a story to finish a layout

Delegates

Those with political offices which gives them automatic votes on nominees

Bound unless no ballot majority

Rep state voters. Ride or die

Caucus

Rural

Open public voting nominations

Party funded

Speeches as to why you vote

Iowa

Primary

Private

Voting

State funded

Open or closed

Open primary

Choose party day of voting

Closed primary

Must be registered with a party 30 days in advance

Ranked choice voting

Rank top 5 candidates

If top person gets more than 50% then they are nominee otherwise go down list

Moderating affect

Runoff elections

If one candidate doesn’t get 50% they have another election 30 days later top two winners are voted on

Spoiler effect

Vote for worst candidate in opening primary

Front loading

Tendency for states to want to hold primary early on to Handel unconfirmed nominees rather than obvious winners

Super Tuesday

Tons of delegates one day voting increases caucus and primary awareness

Convention

Voting for winner out of nominees

Rational choice

Voting based on what is in the citizens best interest

Retrospective voting

Voting based on what a candidate has done in the past

Prospective voting

Voting based on what a candidate plans to do