#22 - In a poll conducted by interviewing eligible voters in

[Adam Tyson]

I respectfully disagree, moshearking . It's not much of an assumption to think that someone who finds an election to be important is more likely to vote than someone who does not. An assumption, yes, but not a huge one.

But more importantly, we have to focus on the task given to us in the question stem. Does answer E offer something that might help explain why the poll was inaccurate? Absolutely - a difference in the two groups (those who said they supported one candidate vs those who supported the other) could indeed explain why the poll was wrong. That's all we need to help to resolve the paradox. We don't have to completely resolve it - we just have to find that answer that does what the stem asked for, and that's to select the one answer out of the five choices given that most helps to resolve that paradox. If this answer helps more than any of the other answers, it must be the correct answer, no matter how much we may want to argue with it!

[sxzhao]

My gut reaction after reading the given information was that "Kenner's supporters disproportionally did the survey" but "Moratori's supporters actually turned up and voted." If choice (E) simply says "Marotari's supports think the election as being importantly," I could see myself picki g this answer, even if the link was still indirect.

The fact that it says "in the poll..." really confused me - if marotori's supporters also participated in the poll, how come Kenner was the "winner according to pol"?

If you say: well maybe only a small group of moratori's supporters did the poll and expressed their view on the election, then viola, a minority's opinions shouldn't be enough to explain the final outcome of election, no?

[Adam Tyson]

Look at it this way, sxzhao: the poll was not a representative sample of people who will actually show up to vote. "Eligible" voters aren't the ones you should ask if you want to know who is going to win; you should ask "actual" voters, the ones who will show up.

Imagine the poll was just two questions:

1. Who do you prefer?
2. How important is the election?

Now, most of the people in the poll said they preferred Kenner in response to the first question. But what if they also responded to the second question by saying "it's not important, I don't really care." Meanwhile, a small percentage of respondents said they preferred Muratori in response to the first question, but most of those people responded to the second question by saying "it's very important, I'm very passionate about this." If that had happened, you would not be surprised to learn that Muratori won the election, even though most people surveyed preferred Kenner. After all, the winner is determined by the people who care enough to go to the polls and cast their vote!

We already know that supporters for both candidates participated in the poll. What we don't know is who actually voted. The results mean that more Muratori supporters voted, and it helps us to understand why if we know that those are the people who care more about the outcome.

[sxzhao]

This explanation is super clear! Yes, they could participate in the poll but still not show up to the voting