That's not how polls work though. A poll shows how a sample of people say they'l... | Hacker News

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		t-3 11 months ago \| parent \| context \| favorite \| on: An election forecast that’s 50-50 is not “giving u... That's not how polls work though. A poll shows how a sample of people say they'll vote. An ideal poll would have the same proportions as the final popular vote count.

Spivak 11 months ago [–]

Thank you! Lordy it's crazy that this thread isn't distinguishing polls which are a measurement and the resulting prediction based on those polls.

If you polled 60%/40% yea/nay you wouldn't give the nays a 40% chance of winning. You need P(yeas > 50%) based on your observed measurement.

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