As Election Day gets closer, poll results are beginning to swirl in the news. But gauging their accuracy can be tricky. It's difficult to gather a representative sample of a population, and the way pollsters phrase questions or weigh responses can skew results.
Steven Rogers, director of the SLU/YouGov poll that measures Missouri public opinion, said tools like 538's Pollster Rankings can help determine which measures of public opinion are most trustworthy. And Michael Smith, a professor of political science at Emporia State University who works on the Kansas Speaks survey, said gauging a pollster's transparency is another key to determining quality.
"Ask, who's doing it? Do they have a political agenda? How transparent are they about things like margin of error, confidence interval?" Smith told KCUR's Up To Date. "Will they be upfront with you about what their poll can't do — about the limitations and shortfalls?"
Groups that average the results of multiple polls can also provide a fuller picture.
- Steven Rogers, director of the SLU/YouGov poll
- Michael Smith, professor of political science at Emporia State University, who works on the Kansas Speaks survey
