Quote:
Originally Posted by grstex
But you can't say "62.5% of respondents oppose the split." That's just not true. the "mandate" is that 55% oppose the split. you CAN'T just discard 12% of the responses. That's more misleading than average from the blog.
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I approached this issue as a presidential election. You can't vote for "neither of the above" or "both of the above." You have to choose. The "5s" refused to choose. In an election, those folks don't vote--it's a very common assumption by pollsters making projections for election results.
Similarly, we don't apply an intensity of like or dislike to presidential candidates. It's either "A" or "B". There's some indication in 2012 that Romney supporters were more intense in their positions, but there were fewer of them. Ultimately, I believe we should really care about which side people fall on.
One other polling note: while this is a voluntary poll so it could be biased, pollsters find that usually the opinions of respondents generally reflect the views of non respondents.
I used a set of common polling assumptions to provide a clearer view of how community preferences fall out. I see others have provided other metrics that arrive at the same conclusion--that opposition is running 2 to 1 against.