Public Address | Cafe | Legal Beagle: Dewey Defeats Truman; or Advice to those polling in preferential systems

Steve Todd

Mon, 23 Sept 2013 19:15:58 +1200

Thanks for this, Moz.

I'm not exactly how sure how it would be done, but we have to come up with some way of polling the voters in respect of mayoral elections conducted by preferential voting that gives more meaningful information as to who the leading candidates are than did…

Moz

Mon, 23 Sept 2013 14:59:04 +1200

The questions could be something like these—

In Oz even in state and federal elections it's normally done as "two party preferred" or three preferences are polled when the race is close. I've never seen a report that tried to extract actual voter preferences in such a laboured way, Steve.…

Steve Todd

Thu, 19 Sept 2013 18:29:57 +1200

Thanks for this posting, Graeme.

As you imply, to get a more accurate idea of which of the serious candidates is preferred by a majority of likely voters, two-candidate preferred (TCP or 2CP) polling is required.

The questions could be something like these—

Q. If the [name of territorial authority]…

izogi

Tue, 17 Sept 2013 16:52:07 +1200

The DomPost has reported it now, albeit late.

On Sunday the WCC Watch blog (kind'a biased in its own way) speculated that upon questioning by the DomPost, John Morrison simply denied that anything actually happened. Not that this is a good excuse to avoid investigating further if it were deemed…

Clarke

Tue, 17 Sept 2013 15:27:35 +1200

Given the Dominion Post's considerable support for their preferred candidate John Morrison – which extends to not even reporting this fiasco – it's difficult to see their use of statistics as anything other than the worst form of propaganda-driven push-polling.

izogi

Tue, 17 Sept 2013 12:23:06 +1200

talking about counting in preferential systems – the current reporting in the press of the labour leader result...

Trying to report preferential results as a flat percentage seems very dodgy to me in general, given how systems like STV will stop counting for each candidate once the candidate has crossed…

Hebe

Mon, 16 Sept 2013 21:35:33 +1200

What sort of nonsense (or mischief) is going on when we see

…had support from 27 per cent of the 635 readers

and

Of those surveyed, 275 were eligible to vote in the Wellington City Council elections

in the same article?

Fails on multiple counts.

steve black

Mon, 16 Sept 2013 20:29:27 +1200

I have a hard time reading that Dom Post article and I’m a statistician! Did the online version lose all its formatting, or was it published that way? Yeeech.

Yes, the two requirements for polls to pass muster are:

(1) get a representative sample from the right people, where you…

Rich of Observationz

Sun, 15 Sept 2013 16:56:34 +1200

About half the population don't have adequate numeracy skills (such as being able to check their payslip) – I think the media reflects that in their failure to cope with anything that requires a grasp of numbers.

Paul Campbell

Sun, 15 Sept 2013 16:37:18 +1200

talking about counting in preferential systems – the current reporting in the press of the labour leader result Cunnliffe got:

He received 18.2 per cent of the caucus vote, which was worth 40 per cent of the total.
He received 27.11 per cent of the membership vote, which was also…

kmont

Sun, 15 Sept 2013 16:31:46 +1200

Word to your mother!

Raymond A Francis

Sun, 15 Sept 2013 08:38:50 +1200

Ooops

Public Address

Sun, 15 Sept 2013 08:38:50 +1200

Discussion from blog post.