www.upi.com/view.cfm

By Gene Koprowski
United Press International

Published 9/29/2004 7:38 AM
CHICAGO, Sept. 29 (UPI) -- An online service offers a poll to its subscribers, asking them whom they prefer for president of the United States in the Nov. 2 election -- George W. Bush or John F. Kerry. A sample of 250,000 "votes" is taken and a landslide is declared for one of the candidates. Is the poll more accurate than a small sample of public opinion, interviews with 1,000 people, taken by a behavioral scientist, over the telephone? Probably not, experts told United Press International.Some forms of online polling are not scientifically sound, and calling an important presidential election based on the results of these online surveys -- at least now, in 2004 -- is risky. The science of statistics and probability is an important factor in discerning between the soundness and unsoundness of polls. Moreover, polls are most effective when they are done randomly, eliminating the chance participants will game the system, experts told UPI."Randomness is needed to reduce bias in surveys," J. Michael Dennis, vice president and managing director of Knowledge Networks Inc., an online polling firm in Menlo Park, Calif., told UPI.