Election-Campaign Law

A new entry for your ?bad example of journalistic analysis? files

By Paul Gronke

Richard Borreca of The Honolulu Star Advertiser celebrates a “thoughtful and engaged electorate.“

Sounds like good news, right?  No, it’s a terribly done story on two grounds.  First, “surveying” the electorate by hanging out for an hour outside of polling place is bad practice.  The writer acknowledges that he is using an “admittedly small sample” (it’s not a SAMPLE for crying out loud!).

But worse, generalizing from early in person voters who were interested and engaged enough to vote on the first day of early in person voting to the full electorate is … is … really really bad.

(Crossposted at earlyvoting.net)

Full post as published by Election Updates on September 08, 2010 (boomark / email).