Practice question · Multiple choice
The 1936 Literary Digest poll collected 2.4 million responses and called the US election for the wrong man. Gallup got it right with a fraction of that. What went wrong?
Hints
- Ask who owned a telephone and a car in 1936, and who did not.
- 2.4 million of the wrong people is still the wrong people.
Show the answer
B. The sampling frame, which in the Depression meant the affluent
Why
The frame decided the answer before a single reply arrived: sampling from car and phone owners in 1936 sampled wealth. Size cannot repair exclusion, it only measures the wrong population more precisely, which is the most expensive way to be wrong.
Practise Sampling Techniques
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