MAIL SURVEYS FOR ELECTION FORECASTING?: AN EVALUATION OF THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH POLL |
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| Authors: | VISSER, PENNY S. KROSNICK, JON A. MARQUETTE, JESSE CURTIN, MICHAEL |
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| Affiliation: | PENNY s. VISSER is a doctoral candidate in the department of psychology at Ohio State University and JON A. KROSNICK is an associate professor in the departments of psychology and political science at Ohio State University, JESSE MARQUETTE is a professor of political science and director of the Survey Research Center at the University of Akron. MICHAEL CURTIN is the editor of the Columbus Dispatch. This research was supported by grant SBR-9503822 from the National Science Foundation to Jon A. Krosnick and by grant T32-MH19728-03 from the National Institute of Mental Health, which provided a prcdoctoral fellowship to Penny S. Visser. We thank Andy Smith and Al Tuchfarber from the University of Cincinnati for providing information on their preelection surveys, and Jim Hunter from the Columbus Dispatch for archival assistance. We also thank Richard Carson, Robert Cameron Mitchell, and Stanley Presser for helpful comments on an earlier draft. |
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| Abstract: | Because of slow turnaround time and typically low response rates,mail surveys have generally been considered of little valuein election forecasting. However, statewide mail surveys conductedby the Columbus Dispatch newspaper since 1980 have made remarkablyaccurate forecasts of Ohio election outcomes. In comparisonto statewide surveys by two other organizations employing conventionaltelephone interview methods, the mail surveys were consistentlymore accurate and were generally less susceptible to sourcesof inaccuracy such as high rolloff and low publicity. The mailsurvey's advantage is attributable at least in part to largersample sizes, sampling and response procedures that yieldedmore representative samples of voters, lack of the need to allocateundecided respondents, and superior questionnaire design. Thesefindings suggest that mail surveys not only may be viable alternativesto telephone surveys but may actually be superior to them undersome conditions. Further-more, these results demonstrate thatsurveys with low response rates are not necessarily low in validity. |
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