A wisp of sunlight on the horizon, standing on a long line waiting for my polling place to open chatting with two young women, first time voters, proud to be electing the first female president. November 8th, 2016.
Nate Silver (fivethirtyeight blog) assuring us for weeks than Hillary was far ahead in the polls. We forgot the mantra of pollsters: never having to say we’re certain.
What went wrong?
We’re two weeks from Election Day in an election that will determine the fate of our nation, the future of democracy.
I looked back at a blog I posted on October 20, 2016, “Can the polls be wrong: Hillary is up 8 points, no, Trump is up by 1 point, What’s going on? Why are the polls varying so much?” I took a deep dive into the polling process, a deeply flawed process that is meant to grab headlines, glue eyes to the screen. If a poll “predicts” a winner the pollsters can pat themselves on the back, if they’re wrong it’s the fault of the public, the “sample” wasn’t being honest.
2016 wasn’t a good year for pollsters; they were wrong predicting the Brevet vote CONTINUE READING: Who’s “Hiding in the Weeds?” Biden or Trump Voters? [A Civics Lesson] | Ed In The Apple
