# quick and dirty way to addup polls for lower MOE?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/quick-and-dirty-way-to-addup-polls-for-lower-moe/262257
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [August 30, 2004, 4:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/quick-and-dirty-way-to-addup-polls-for-lower-moe/262257 "2004-08-30T16:45:53Z")
**Posts on this page:** 2
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@drhess](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drhess)
#### Post date: [August 30, 2004, 4:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/quick-and-dirty-way-to-addup-polls-for-lower-moe/262257/1 "2004-08-30T16:45:53Z")
Is there a quick and dirty way to addup some recent polls to get a better estimate? For instance, go to [http://www.uselectionatlas.org](http://www.uselectionatlas.org) and click on Iowa. Assuming the polls ask the same question (or tap the same thing they measure), use the same universe of likely voters and that you don’t think there’s a real change in opinion over time, big assumption but if you have a few polls within a week it might be somewhat safe, is there a way to add up three polls and use the MOE information given to create one pooled poll? :dubious:
If not from this information, what would you need to make it work? Thanks.
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### Author:  [@drhess](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drhess)
#### Post date: [August 30, 2004, 5:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/quick-and-dirty-way-to-addup-polls-for-lower-moe/262257/2 "2004-08-30T17:00:29Z")
Oh, somewhat related additional question: what does one make of the Nader showing in polls where he is getting less than the size of the margin of error? Do you just go from 0 to his poll plus the MOE to see how high his support could be? Seems like that’s not right.