The Catholic Cricket

On my way home from work today, I took note of the gas price.

$2.15 (I round that extra $0.009 up)

It seems to me that during the summer, there were times I paid twice that.  $4.30

So what caused the price of gas to drop by 50%?  It wasn’t any government program that I’m aware of.  For all the talking they did during the summer, for all of the concern they expressed, and even that time during the summer recess when Republicans stayed after Speaker Pelosi turned off the lights, our government did nothing that changed the price.

It seems that while the government is ineffectual, the market took care of things all on its own.

I’ve been thinking about all of the polls that are out there on the current election, Presidential or otherwise.  I’ve looked a little bit into how they do things, and I have a question.  If anyone can find the answer to this or explain it in terms I’m likely to understand, I’d appreciate it.

From what I recall of my statistics class, and the programming I did on SPC software, the combination of random selection and a sufficient sample size was needed to reach a reasonable conclusion.  For example, if I had a lot of 5000 parts, and I sampled 100 parts for defects, I could use the number of defective parts found in that sample, multiply by 50, and have a close approximation of how many bad defective parts I have.  Applying some equations that I no longer remember, one could also calculate out a reasonable range that would be right 95% of the time (or whatever the percentages are…that’s not really important.)

Now, let’s take that 100 piece sample and break it down further.  The defective parts fall in one of three categories: bent, cracked, or porous.  The number of instances of each defect in the sample can be further used to extrapolate the actual defective quantities of each defect type in the lot.

Have I confused enough of you to stop reading?  Probably.

Anyhow, I understand that there is a historical aspect to the statistics.  We can know that, over the history of producing that part, we’ve averaged a 2% scrap rate for cracks, 3% for bent, etc.  Those can be expected.  However, if there’s a problem with the manufacturing process in some way, the historical averages can be deviated from significantly.  From what I recall, that’s also something checked for during statistical analysis.  A sudden doubling of the cracked parts is a cause for concern.

Now, inherent in the sampling process is the idea that this current sample of this current lot is a valid representation of the overall lot.  There’s no need to apply any type of alteration to the counts in order to force the statistics to meet the historical trend.  In fact, doing so is counter-productive to the idea of historical tracking of such sampling data.

With all of this in mind, we reach my question (or, more accurately, series of questions): Why are election polls weighted?  Isn’t the random sampling sufficient for making accurate predictions?  If I randomly sample 1000 voters, and 50% self-identify as Republican, should that number (and other applicable responses) really be adjusted down to 35% because that’s the percentage somebody somewhere decided is the real makeup of the country?  Shouldn’t the random sample be representative of the entire “lot” of Americans, with a margin of error?  Or is the margin of error on such a small sample of such a large “lot” just so wide that it makes the polls meaningless without the weighting?

Or am I looking at it wrong?  Are we grabbing a random sample of co-mingled parts?  Doodads, widgets, and thingamajigs all thrown in a large bin, and we know that the bin has about 40% doodads, 35% widgets, and 25% thingamajigs.  If that’s the case, then I would expect a sample of 1000 items from the bin to be around 400 doodads, 350 widgets, and 250 thingamajigs.  I assume that’s where the weighting comes in.

But is that really how our country is made up?  Do we really know the percentage of doodads in the bin?  It seems to me that the random sampling should, in and of itself, account for the percentage makeup of the items in the bin.

Maybe my brother will explain this one to me, because it’s got me confused.

Oh, one other thing.  The polls themselves are all selecting from the same bin.  The random samples are different (with some small chance of duplicated sampling).  Therefore, the unweighted numbers would seem to me to be a good indicator of the actual makeup of the country.

Entirely fictitious example: 
Zogby polls 10 people.  4 D, 4 R, 2 I
AP polls 10 people, 5 D, 4 R, 1 I
Fox polls 10 people, 4 D, 5 R, 1 I
NYT polls 10 people, 5 D, 3 R, 2 I
WP polls 10 people, 4 D, 4 R, 2 I

Do historical weightings needs to be applied when the internals of the multiple polls can be used to see what kind of compositional makeup exists out there?  With a net random sample of 50 people, I’ve got 22 D, 20 R, 8 I.

Wouldn’t such an amalgamation of current data be more accurate than trying to apply historical numbers that may be off?  Current sampling of current people with live data to make live predictions, instead of forcing the mix in the sample to match the last known percentages in the bin (which is surely based on an old sampling anyhow)?  Is somebody already doing this?

Well, I’ve managed to confuse myself.  I hope I haven’t given anyone too much of a headache with this.

I’ve participated in a discussion on What’s Wrong With the World that started out being about Embryonic Stem Cell Research (or, more to the point, how ESCR has disappeared as an issue in this election), but advanced to a discussion about voting and prudential judgment.

Before the comments were closed (it was an older post, with 130+ comments), I noted that there were several one-vote decisions that helped shape this country, and that there’s no way for us to know which time we vote could be “the one”.  Zippy Catholic responded with:

Not in the current presidential contest. Thinking that my vote is going to change the outcome of the current Presidential election in the age of mass market and mass media is like thinking that me buying one can of Pepsi will determine which soda, Pepsi or Coke, is the most popular. It is assuredly more efficacious for the rational man to pray for a miracle.

Now, I can understand such a pessimistic view of elections, but is he right?  (For the record, from what I’ve read, Zippy isn’t buying Coke or Pepsi, he’s going for RC Cola or maybe Jolt).

Now, in my comment at the above link, I noted the story (most likely a stretched version of the truth) of Freeman Clark leaving his deathbed to vote for Kelso for the Indiana state senate, who a year later pushed for Hannigan as one of Indiana’s US Senators, who a year later voted for Texas Statehood.  Kelso won by one vote (allegedly, Clark’s, who allegedly died on his way back to his deathbed), Hannigan won by one vote, and had Hannigan not voted for Texas Statehood, the US Senate vote would have been a tie.

But while Clark’s vote (Clark’s existence is really moot) was important, it was just one of however many Kelso got.  Had any of Kelso’s supporters stayed home, he might not have been elected to the state senate.  It wasn’t just Clark’s vote, it was every single vote that Keslo got that made the difference.

Now, all of those voting in the Indiana state election way back in 1844 (or whatever year it was…the places I’ve seen this story have variations…according to one site I saw, Kelso was a state senator from 1848-1849) had no idea that their votes, cumulatively, would make such a significant difference in the future of the country.

Coke and Pepsi aren’t successful because of mass-media and mass marketing, but because of millions of single votes.  One can boycott both Pepsi and Coke, and the companies will do fine, but boycotts work because of cumulative effect.  And voting works the same way.

Final thought, since it’s so late: I’m not impressed with the idea of voting third party, and I’m definitely not impressed with the idea of not voting at all.  Not voting is ridiculous, and voting third party is equally ridiculous, akin to Obama’s “Present” votes in Illinois.  Oh, I could understand going for a third party if the race was a blowout one way or the other.  But when the race is tight, and the stakes are as high as they are (especially for anyone coming from a pro-Life perspective), it’s utterly foolish to see one’s vote as meaningless.  If it means nothing, why are the candidates trying so hard to get it?

And, as if anyone needed me to state my position, I’m voting McCain.  While he’s wrong on ESCR, he’s right on just about every other Life issue.  I’d rather support a candidate who is 98% correct than deny him my support and let a completely wrong candidate win.  And that’s my prudential judgment.

With McCain, one can hope for (and lobby for) a change in his ESCR position.  The expectations one should have for Obama – well, one shouldn’t have any.  He would support more ESCR than McCain, in addition to signing FOCA, allow government-funded abortions, and everything else the Culture of Death advances.  I’ve started a post on this, and was planning on hitting several other topics on the election, but I don’t know if they’ll ever get posted.  Ahh well, living my life is more important than ranting and raving online anyway.