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American Thinker: Don't Forget the Undecided Voters

Apparently it has become my mission in life to try to persuade my fellow Republicans and conservatives, not to mention the voting public at large, to stop believing polls that supposedly show Barack Obama "winning" the race for president over John McCain, despite the fact that the actual election has not yet taken place.

In a recent article, I pointed out the fundamental inaccuracy (and bias) that results from how the polls are constructed (and, I should have added, implemented), how the polls are "weighted" (e.g., by assuming that Democrats or blacks or younger voters will vote in disproportionately large numbers this year), and how the media accounts -- or rather, fails to account -- for the polls' "margin of error." This last point is critical because most polls show that the "gap" between the candidates is within the reported margin of error, meaning that "in reality" McCain might be "winning" the race.

But there is another crucial issue that the media routinely overlooks when reporting polls: undecided voters. For example, consider the Fox News/Opinion Dynamics poll from October 10. The Fox News headline reads: "Obama Maintains Lead Over McCain." The poll shows Obama leading McCain by 46% to 39% among registered voters nationwide. Moreover, the margin of error for this polls is +/- 3 points, which means that Obama's lead is larger than the poll's margin of error.

But note the real message of this poll: Neither Obama nor McCain garners majority support, and 15% of voters remain undecided. That's huge.

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