Interview Mode Effects: The Case of Exit Polls and Early Voting

McDonald, Michael P.; Thornburg, Matthew P.

doi:10.1093/poq/nfs025

Cited by 9 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 18 publications

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“…Our overall results suggest the prospects for exit poll participation among respondents in our sample were more optimistic compared to compliance in the actual surveys. In reality, Edison Media Research, the organization that conducted the National Election Poll (NEP) for the broadcast networks in 2008, reported a response rate of 46 percent for sample precincts and 29 percent for the phone surveys (McDonald & Thornburg, 2012). Despite the fact that exit poll participation intentions were likely overstated in our sample, the experimental nature of the current study allows us to assume any proneness to report socially-desirable responses is evenly distributed across our experimental conditions.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 88%

“…More recently, however, exit poll nonresponse has increased and differences between exit poll estimates and actual vote distributions, measured as "within precinct error," are on the rise (Traugott, Highton, & Brady, 2005;Frankovic, Panagopoulos, & Shapiro, 2009). Evidence of differential nonresponse in exit polls is accumulating (Frankovic, Panagopoulos, & Shapiro, 2009;Merkle & Edelman, 2000, 2002Mitofsky, 2005;Keeter, 2011;McDonald & Thornburg, 2012;Panagopoulos, 2013). For example, comparisons of precinct-level votes and exit polls in the same precincts in some states showed that Democrats were more likely than Republicans to consent to interviews in both 2004(Keeter, 2011.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Exit Poll Sponsorship and Response Intentions

Panagopoulos¹

2016

JPL

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Scholars and practitioners alike are increasingly concerned about growing and differential rates of nonresponse in exit polls. In this paper, I examine how exit poll sponsorship affects response intentions. I leverage an experiment imbedded in a nationally-representative probability sample telephone sample that probed respondents about exit poll participation intentions. The survey, fielded by Opinion Research Corporation for CNN in November 2006, randomly varied whether respondents were informed the exit poll would be conducted by the "television networks," specifically, or generically, by "some organizations." The results reveal that respondents are significantly more likely to report they would be likely to participate in exit polls when television networks are explicitly identified as sponsors. These effects are robust across a series of specifications and do not appear to be moderated by key observable attributes including age, gender, race, partisanship or educational attainment.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 88%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Exit Poll Sponsorship and Response Intentions

Panagopoulos¹

2016

JPL

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“…For example, past research showed that women are significantly less likely than men to express attitudes in surveys (Atkeson and Rapoport 2003). Similarly, studies show that people of colour are more likely to abstain from providing opinions in polls (McDonald and Thornburg 2012). As for age, Berinsky (2008) found that middle-aged respondents were much less cooperative than younger and older respondents.…”

Section: Empirical Approachmentioning

confidence: 99%

Income inequality and opinion expression gap in the American public: an analysis of policy priorities

Yıldırım

Bulut

2022

J. Pub. Pol.

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Past scholarship has documented that the poor are more likely to withhold their policy preferences in public opinion surveys, suggesting income gaps in political engagement. Despite the wealth of scholarly interest in opinion formation, however, previous studies focused almost exclusively on opinion gaps in preferences, leaving income-related gaps in policy prioritisation virtually unexamined. Drawing on 596 public opinion surveys conducted with nearly 700,000 Americans over 55 years, we make a comprehensive attempt to examine income-level differences in “don’t know” responses to the most important problem (MIP) question. Our results show that the less affluent are more likely to say “don’t know” when asked about the MIP facing their country, even after controlling for various factors including educational attainment and political attention. Importantly, we also show that income-related differences in opinionation cross cut other socio-economic differences in policy prioritisation. These results have important implications for the study of public opinion.

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“…Although considerable work has been done on properly measuring turnout (e.g., Berent et al, 2016), less attention has been paid to same-day turnout which is often estimated using exit polls (Frankovic, 2008). However, the accuracy of these polls has been called into question due to the well-known problems associated with self-selection and interviewer effects (McDonald and Thornburg, 2012).…”

Section: Turnout Traffic Cameras and The 2015 Uk General Electionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Stand up and be counted: Using traffic cameras to assess voting behavior in real time

Dietrich,

Ko,

Sen

2024

Research & Politics

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Despite their ubiquity, few have used traffic camera networks for social science research. Using 1,312,977 images collected from 768 London-based cameras leading up to the 2015 UK general election, this study not only demonstrates how traffic camera data can be used to effectively measure same-day turnout, but we also provide ways such data can be used to assess political behavior more broadly. Such automated enumeration is especially important in countries where official results are only returned for the current election, making it difficult for those interested in assessing turnout at lower levels of aggregation, even when those elections are next on the calendar. Although we are not the first to suggest the value of images-as-data, this study hopes to underline the importance of video-as-data, while simultaneously offering an important foundation for future research.

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Interview Mode Effects: The Case of Exit Polls and Early Voting

Cited by 9 publications

References 18 publications

Exit Poll Sponsorship and Response Intentions

Exit Poll Sponsorship and Response Intentions

Income inequality and opinion expression gap in the American public: an analysis of policy priorities

Stand up and be counted: Using traffic cameras to assess voting behavior in real time

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