Validating Elections Polls |
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| Coordinator 1 | Professor Peter Selb (University of Konstanz) |
Election polling offers ample opportunities to validate survey estimates. The population parameters of primary interest (such as vote shares and turnout rates) become known after the election. The availability of numerous similarly designed polls for a single election brings us closer to observing not only the population parameters but also the sampling distribution of their estimators. When focusing on voter turnout, linkages with voter files even allow us to observe the criterion variable at the respondent level.
This panel welcomes methodological contributions that leverage these opportunities to assess the accuracy and precision of election polls, individual error components, and their variability across polls and elections. We invite both case studies and comparative work that explore these themes.