How can opinion polling fail?

Answer 1

What i believe to be either the biggest factor or just one of the main factors in public opinion polls and how they can get to be less than completely accurate is simple. First, it depends on the number of people polling and how many poll in total at the end of the day, because the more people you have to poll the less apt you will be for margin error, but the less people you have to poll the more apt you are for margin error.

Answer 2

Just the whole generic location of the polling. There was a poll map that was put out during the election, and it showed that the mass of the democratic votes were in the highly dense and populated cities, while the republican votes came from the countrysides.

So location could be one way to make public opinion polls inaccurate.

Answer 3

If the number in the sample is very small, the answer may not be the same as would be found in a larger group.
If you would ask a number of dog owners if cats would make good pets, the number who said yes may be small. If you asked the same of cat owners, the number may be too large.
You need to ask questions like these to a very large group and also they should have various opinions. More likely this group would reflect what a very large number would say.

Answer 4

The most common cause is improper sampling techniques.