Word: errors
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Dates: during 1940-1940
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...week's end, Mt. Wilson observers left the Naval Observatory in Washington to decide whether late Mercury meant the earth's time was 30 seconds fast. They decided it did not. Reason: both prediction and observation contained too large a margin of possible error. To disappointed laymen who had hoped for 30 extra seconds, it looked as though Mercury was just discrediting astronomers again...
...underestimated Roosevelt's strength by over 6%, but it was 13 percentage points closer than the Digest. Dr. Gallup's data last week showed a 52% majority for Roosevelt and 21 States in the President's bag. But he allowed himself a 4% margin of probable error, and day before election he wrote in the newspapers subscribing to his poll that he did not believe the data "justify a prediction of the outcome of this election...
...data were better than he thought. His over-all error was less than 3% on the popular vote. He hit the vote on the head in five States, missed by more than 4% in only three States. Because the election was close, he put eight States in the wrong column...
...popular vote was 60.2%. Last week he reported that the popular sentiment for Roosevelt five days before election was 55.2%. The popular vote, as closely as it could be calculated from late returns this week was 54.6% for Roosevelt. He had reduced his over-all error to less than...
...American Opinion Forecasts poll, conducted by Edward J. Wall* on a scientific sampling basis, reported a 52% Roosevelt sentiment. This was the same as Gallup's prediction, but Mr. Wall allowed himself a statistical error of 2%, definitely predicted that Roosevelt would win the popular vote although Willkie might have a majority on the electoral college. But in 1940, as in 1936, the closest estimate of the popular vote was made by quiet, curly-haired Elmo Burns Roper, who has never made any great hullabaloo because he was one of the first to undertake political polls by the scientific...