A Consumer's Guide to the Polls
Read the ingredients before you buy.
Updated Thursday, Oct. 28, 2004, at 5:31 PM
May weight your vote differently based on your: Race, sex, age, education.
Adjusts results to fit expected party shares of electorate:No.
ICR
Publishes entire questionnaire with results: No.
Screens people out based on past failure to vote: Yes.
Raises these questions before asking whom you'd vote for: None.
Presses undecideds to pick a candidate: Yes.
Average boost from pressing, last three samples: Bush +2.63, Kerry +1.97.
Disclosure of boost factor: Unpublished but available to media on request.
May weight your vote differently based on your: Race, sex, age, education, region.
Adjusts results to fit expected party shares of electorate: Yes, in principle; no, in practice. The poll's partisan breakdown has not yet veered more than four points from what ICR considers "appropriate balance." If it does, ICR may adjust it.
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Illustration by Mark Alan Stamaty.