He didn't choose Springfield at random for his example, this particular bit of counter-intuitive statistic is called the Simpson's Paradox.<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simpson%27s_paradox" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simpson%27s_paradox</a>
One thing I rarely see brought up is that people lie to exit poll takers. Maybe I'm just stupid, or politics are too far above my understanding, but I don't understand why exit polling is taken as gospel (see 2000 shrub vs bore, or brexit if you prefer an international flavor), given there's absolutely zero requirement that responses be truthful.<p>I know I wasn't good with my statistics classes (I managed low to mid "A"s, but I never really understood the steps I was reproducing, or the why behind the process), but how do you correct for that type of uncertainty?<p>Is there a good, basic statistics reference that HN would recommend? We used Devore's "Probability and Statistics for Engineering and the Sciences", and it didn't "click" with me. I'd love to find a good textbook on the subject.
> The reason for the initial error in the 2016 primary is obvious: the rural/urban split caught exit pollsters — who probably assumed things would look a lot like 2012 — completely by surprise.<p>Wouldn't it make a lot more sense to use the 2012 dem primary as a basis instead?<p>> And if you hear anyone say the exit polls are a sign of a rigged election, please do tell them that I told you to tell them that I said to say that they’re not very knowledgeable about the subject.<p>Yeah, it's too bad. Now that I know this info about exit poll results it would be nice if they could qualify the numbers a little when reporting them.
So obviously, early results from exit polls aren't reliable because we don't know turnout numbers.<p>But after the election, we know exactly who voted, so it seems we <i>could</i> use exit polls at that point to sanity-check the results. Given a paper trail, a significant discrepancy could trigger a recount.
> Unfortunately, everyone (you, your family, that egg on Twitter, most pundits, and at least one organization purporting to be doing exit polling) has no fucking idea how exit polls are conducted and why those initial figures are a steaming pile of crap until real figures on turnout (i.e. the votes themselves) have been tabulated.<p>We do, don't be so condescending and expletive. The popular press just wants some cheap sound bites to get more views / clicks. They do the same with academic research, in which they mistake economic significance for statistical significance, ignore any shortcomings, ignore non-rejected hypotheses, and project the findings outside of the (often very limited) scope.