Quote:
Originally posted by MuadDib
BTW how can their be such an assured victory when less than 20% of precints have reported and its 55/45?
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Statistically, if you have a large enough sample, the sample tends to mirror the overall results. While statisticians get paid a lot of money to correct for this error or that, the basic truth is that if you have a random sample of people to start with you can pretty accurately estimate how the end result is going to turn out. Twenty percent of precincts in CA is a hell of a lot of people.
Of course, that didn't work so well in the 2000 election, but that was a special case.