# So will anybody ever trust the polls again?

**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-will-anybody-ever-trust-the-polls-again/924714
**Category:** Politics & Elections
**Created:** [November 4, 2020, 5:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-will-anybody-ever-trust-the-polls-again/924714 "2020-11-04T05:49:40Z")
**Posts on this page:** 1
**Showing post:** 56

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### Author: ![DMC](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dmc/32/18049_2.png) [@DMC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DMC)
#### Post date: [November 4, 2020, 5:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-will-anybody-ever-trust-the-polls-again/924714/56 "2020-11-04T17:03:35Z")

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> [@Deeg](#):
>
> One thing we can hit Silver on, though, is his knock on Trafalgar.

“We” can do no such thing. Trafalgar is mediocre historically (75% of the races were called correctly) and has zero transparency. The average pollster hits 79% correctness and even Rasumussen hit 78%.

Here is their polling methodology (and it’s so short I am including it in its entirety):

> The Trafalgar Group delivers its polling questionnaires utilizing a mix of six different methods:
> 
> - Live callers
> - Integrated voice response
> - Text messages
> - Emails
> - Two other proprietary digital methods they don’t share publicly.
> 
> The company utilizes short questionnaires of nine questions or less based on their perceptions about attenuated attention spans and the need to “accommodate modern busy lifestyles.” According to Cahaly, the firm’s polls last one to two minutes and are designed to quickly get opinions from those who would not typically participate in political polls.
> 
> The firm has also pioneered methods to deal with what they describe as “Social Desirability Bias” in order to get at what a poll participant’s true feelings are in situations where they believe some individuals in a poll are not likely to reveal their actual preferences. In their view, this included the 2016 Presidential election and the 2018 Florida gubernatorial election.

No clue why they refer to themselves in the third person, nor did the poster named DMC learn anything about how they work by reading that.

This is how you lay out the methodology of transparent polling (I’m linking this as it’s far more substantial than the ad copy above):

> **[ABC News' polling methodology and standards](https://abcnews.go.com/US/PollVault/abc-news-polling-methodology-standards/story?id=145373)**
>
> A summary of ABC News polling standards and methodology.

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