Do Robo-Polls Cheat?

John Sides looks at new research which finds “the errors of the robo-polls were much lower when a live-interviewer poll had already been conducted in a particular state. In other words, the robo-polls were more accurate when there was a previous live-interviewer poll that may have served as a benchmark.”

From the paper: “Pollsters know their results are being compared to the results of prior polls, and polls created for public consumption have incentives to ensure that their results are roughly consistent with the narrative being told in the press if they want to garner public attention. Pollsters also have further financial incentives to get it right which may make them leery of ignoring the information contained in other polls…”

“Beyond the implications for interpreting IVR polls, the larger point here is that if polls take cues from one another, then the hundreds of polls being reported are not really as informative as the number of polls would imply.”