I am writing today to announce the closure of the New Mexico Independent. After three and a half years of operation in New Mexico, the board of the American Independent News Network, has decided to shift publication of its news…
While environmental activists played their part yesterday during demonstrations at the capitol building, going so far as to dress up as solar panels and to sing the tune of “You Are My Sunshine,” their counterparts, the anti-cap-and-trade contingency who has…
Roughly one quarter of University of New Mexico students are unimpressed with the state’s flagship public school, according to a survey that questioned college students about their higher education experiences.
Nate Silver of the popular polling analysis site FiveThirtyEight gave 10 reasons why those watching the elections on TV and online should ignore the exit polls. Exit polls were famously wrong in recent elections.
One reason is that it is nearly impossible to actually get a random sample:
Although the exit polls have theoretically established procedures to collect a random sample — essentially, having the interviewer approach every nth person who leaves the polling place — in practice this is hard to execute at a busy polling place, particularly when the pollster may be standing many yards away from the polling place itself because of electioneering laws.
So while Matt Drudge and others may tout some leaked exit polling numbers, read the FiveThirtyEight primer and remind yourself why the exit polling isn’t accurate or indicative of the final results.
