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Comment by KZeillmann | Hacker News Reader

My issue with polling is that many races were well beyond the margin of error. The Senate polling in particular was bad this year.

Sara Gideon was favored to win the Maine race in the polling, because there hadn't been a single poll showing Collins in the lead since July. She lost her race by 9 points.

It's also strange to see the region makes a difference in the poll error. The polls in Minnesota were basically spot-on, but in Wisconsin (demographically very similar), the polling average was Biden +8, with one ABC news poll showing him +17, the kind of outlier result you'd expect with a +8 average. He's gonna win there by ~1 percentage point.

There's something wrong with how a lot of these pollsters determine samples, or how they judge someone's likeliness to vote.

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It was both the sample (read actual reports from pollsters on how hard it is to get a sample these days... people DO NOT want to participate in polls) and an underestimate of the number of voters the Republicans would get to the polls. If your LV model is wrong you are really flying blind and for various reasons both parties activated a ton of voters this cycle so we had an electorate that no one was able to model well. The last time this large of an electorate turned out (in terms of percentage of eligible voters) they were deciding between William McKinley and William Jennings Bryan.

> It was both the sample (read actual reports from pollsters on how hard it is to get a sample these days... people DO NOT want to participate in polls) and an underestimate of the number of voters the Republicans would get to the polls.

Exactly, polling is very difficult, and getting even more so.

I was polled a few years ago by Gallup or Pew (or one of the other well known ones). The call was from an unknown number and I took it. No way I'd do that now with all the robocalls.

Is it possible that the projections themselves affected the outcome? If people saw that they had a comfortable lead, they wouldn't be as motivated to turnout.

Then the polling results might ironically be more accurate if people believed in them less.

Yes they can affect the outcome, but the opposite direction than you described. People who feel their candidate is doomed to lose don't turn out. People like to vote for a winner.

edit: To be clear, when polls overwhelmingly suggest a landslide, it suppresses votes from both sides. But a much higher proportion of the losing side will choose not to vote, thus inflating the gap.

it's not just polls that are wrong but likely this premature projection as well, tens of thousands of provisioned and military ballots are still not counted. Recounts are still to happen in most swing states. Lawsuits are pending.

I wouldn't be surprised Trump actually wins.

Everyone would be surprised if Trump wins, because at this point it is so mathematically improbable that even gun-shy decision desks at major news networks are able to make the call without fearing they will look like idiots. Recounts have never moved a state election more than a thousand votes that I am aware of and Trump is behind by tens of thousands in the states that matter. Lawsuits won't do anything, because no on has standing to prevent someone else from legitimately voting according to the rules in place at the time of election, nor of preventing someone else from counting those votes as legally mandated.

Trump lost, get over it.

> Lawsuits won't do anything

Lawsuits could definitely do something.

If there is fraud or misconduct, that can matter. Hell, the US spent two years investigating some Facebook ads and hackers.

But right now there's no clear indication that will in fact happen.

Elections are run by the states and so in almost all instances the federal courts will defer to the state courts when it comes to things like determination of fact. So far there has been no evidence of either fraud or misconduct and the thin claims put up so far have been laughed out of court. Lacking any claims of fraud or misconduct the only other option is to somehow be able to prove a miscount and since everyone learned their lesson with the hanging chads of the butterfly ballots this is exceedingly unlikely. With no claims to be made by anyone with standing the states are on a clock in terms of exercising their Article 2 powers.

On the first Monday after the second Wednesday in December (Dec 14) the electors are going to meet in the respective state capitals, whereupon they will cast their votes and attach six copies of their vote to six Certificates of Ascertainment which will go to the president of the Senate (Chuck Grassley), two to the national archivist (David Ferriero), and then one to their secretary of state and one to the chief justice of whatever federal district their state it in. Voila! Now at 12:01 on the 20th of January anyone, even you, could deliver the oath of office to Joe Biden and swear him in as the 46th president.

> Elections are run by the states and so in almost all instances the federal courts will defer to the state courts when it comes to things like determination of fact.

Yes.

It’s not just military ballots. I believe it’s also ex-pats. These may counterbalance each other.

well, as dems liked to say until this morning "count every vote".

Biden's margins are hair thin.

Biden is leading in most states by more votes than there are outstanding ballots; that does not really qualify as hair thin. The margin may be small in a few states, but it is large enough in a sufficient collection of states right now that while we keep counting every last vote we also know that Trump lost.

Want to bet?

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