Quote:
Originally posted by pod
Very cute, but a sample that size is very good at representing 25,000,000 people, or ANY number of people for that matter. A common CNN poll has a error margin of 3%, which represents a sample of 1100. The key, of course, is in how the sample is picked, and how representative it is of the population you are interested in.
http://www.robertniles.com/stats/sample.shtml
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very cute. but how exactly does one arrive at a 'error margin of 3%'? i somehow doubt it was because they occasionally poll 25,000,000 to check if they are right...
yeah, sample polling works great... just look at the last presidential election :-/
the media uses sample polling to push their own agendas, it has nothing to do with what percentages of people's actual opinions. just my opinion of course, but from using a stat based sample, i feel my opinion is agreed with by at least two thirds of all americans (with a 6% margin of error, of course)
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