评论
打印
=====精彩回顾===
Why You Shouldn't Trust Polls
为何民意测验结果不靠谱
Polling titan Gallup has decided to withdraw from the US presidential primaries and may even sit out the general election. Perhaps it’s not too surprising, given that they predicted Mitt Romney would beat Barack Obama in 2012 and instead he lost by about a 4 point margin. Over the past few decades, polling has become increasingly inaccurate. With the upcoming 2016 election it’s important to know, why do polls get it wrong so often?
民意测验巨头盖洛普决定退出美国总统选举初选，甚至可能面对整个大选袖手旁观。或许这并不意外，因为2012年，盖洛普预测米特·罗姆尼会打败奥巴马，最终他却以4%的差距败于奥巴马之手。过去几十年，民意测验的准确性越来越差。随着2016年选举即将来临，有一点很重要，我们想要知道，为什么民意测验如此经常出错？
Well, there are a number of reasons why polling accuracy has declined. For one, cell phones are on the rise, while fewer and fewer people use landlines. Why would this be a problem? Cell phones can’t be autodialed according to the 1991 Telephone Consumer Protection Act. In order to call someone’s cell phone,a live person needs to be the one to do it.For every thousand respondents, it takes about 20,000 calls to random numbers, most of which are non working numbers. This is incredibly expensive and as a result, some polls don’t include cell phones. And since younger people,lower income Americans and minority groups often only use cell phones, they are extremely under-represented, compared to older, white people who still rely on landlines.
民意测验准确性下降有几个原因。其中一个原因就是，手机用户不断增加，而越来越少的人使用座机电话。为什么这会是一个问题呢？根据1991年通过的《电话消费者保护法案》，手机是不能自动拨号的。为了拨打某人的手机，必须有专人拨打。要获得一千名受调查对象，必须随机拨打大约2万个手机，而其中大部分是无效号码。成本非常高昂，因此，一些民意测验并不包括手机用户调查。而由于年轻人，低收入美国人和少数民族经常只用手机，与仍然使用座机的老人，白人相比，前者的民意几乎没有得到代表。
Another problem with polling is the reticence to even state an opinion. Polls now have extremely low response rates. Back in the late 1970’s, an 80% response rate was considered acceptable.By 2012, the Pew Research Center reported that that number had dropped to 9%. Some say this is due to fears over privacy and confidentiality. It’s pretty tough to determine the pulse of a nation when relatively few people seem interested in sharing their opinions.
民意测验的另外一个问题是，受调查对象不愿发表自己的意见。现在，民意测验的回应率极低。追溯到上世纪70年代，80%的答案是可接受的。到了2012年，皮尤研究中心报道该数字已经降低到9%。一些人说，这是由于担心隐私和机密性。由于相对来说很少有人愿意分享自己的意见，很难掌握国民动向。
But polling inaccuracy extends past the phone line. Internet polls come with their own set of problems. Most significantly, they do not account for a relevant group of responders. While 93% of 18-29 year olds in the US use the internet, in the 2014 midterm elections,only 13% of that age group showed up to vote.
但是民意测验的不准确性不仅仅表现在座机上。互联网民意测验也存在自己的问题。最重要的是，他们没有代表相关的群体。尽管美国93%的18岁至29岁的年轻人使用互联网，而在2014年的中期选举中，这个年龄群体只有13%的人投票。
Meanwhile, more likely voters have considerably lower rates of internet use, rendering online polls a poor representation of public opinion.
与此同时，更有可能投票的人使用互联网的比率却很低，导致在线民意调查很难代表公众民意。
Another huge issue is the influence of early polling. Early polls tend not to correlate with final results, as most respondents have not had the time to learn about new candidates or issues. But those early polls are frequently the only source of information available for preliminary media coverage. So uninformed polls leading to glorified coverage causes a cyclical interest level. Potential respondents see the media talking about early poll frontrunners,which influences them to voice a stronger opinion, and thus possibly skew future polls.
另外一个很大的问题是早期民意测验的影响。早期民意测验与最终的结果关联性很低，因为最开始的时候，大部分受调查对象没有时间了解新的候选人或问题。但是早期民意测验却是媒体早期报道的主要消息来源。所以，消息不灵通的民意测验导致媒体大肆报道，引起人们的兴趣。潜在的受调查对象看到媒体报道早期民意测验的领头羊，影响他们表达出更强烈的意见，因此可能会歪曲将来的民意测验。
We’ve already seen this happening in the 2016 primaries. For example, online polls showed that Bernie Sanders was the winner of the first Democratic debate. However in more traditional phone based polls, Hillary Clinton came out ahead.
我们在2016年的初期选举中已经看到这一点。例如，在线民意调查显示伯纳德·桑德斯是民主党第一场辩论的获胜者。然而，在更传统的电话民意测验中，希拉里·克林顿脱颖而出。
But inaccurate polling isn’t just a problem in the US. The most recent election in the UK predicted that the conservative party would barely win by 1% which could have wreaked
havoc on parliament, but election results saw them winning by about 37% to the opposition’s 31%. With so many issues surrounding polling methods, it’s best to take them with a hefty grain of salt.
但是民意测验结果不准确并不是美国独有的问题。英国最近的选举预测保守党只能以1%的轻微优势获胜，这在议会引起了混乱，但是选举结果显示他们以37%的选票获胜，而反对派只有31%。由于民意测验方法存在诸多问题，最好对测验结果有所保留。
While polling isn’t as reliable as it used to be, you can make up your mind for yourself about upcoming presidential candidates by watching our playlist.
尽管民意测验并不像过去那么可靠，你也可以通过观看我们的节目来了解未来的总统候选人。
