I am so SICK of hearing about independents. Read this [View All]

‘Independent’ Voters Are Generally Not

They are prized by pollsters, but are smaller in number and less influential than most think.
By Tom Jacobs

---"Why don’t all pollsters restrict their surveys of independents to people who are genuinely unaffiliated with a party? Petrocik believes the problem is the small number of people in that category.

“Without the leaners, the base of independents could be as small as 150 respondents in the typical national sample of 1,000 or so that we read about,” he said. “The sampling error of such a small number would be very large — 15 percentage points. It is hard to take a seven-point shift seriously if you are dealing with a 15 or more percentage point sampling error.”

The pollsters defend their practice by arguing that the fact some partisans are unwilling to identify with their party is interesting information, even if it doesn’t necessarily predict voting patterns."---

http://www.miller-mccune.com/politics/independent-voters-are-generally-not-3560/

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