Thursday, March 20, 2014

Fanboyism: not just in gaming!

It's election season in Quebec, and whenever you say election, you say POLLS! Poll after poll after poll after poll! One recent poll in particular got people talking, for the simple reason that it was the first one that had the Liberal Party in the lead. Now just about none of you are from Quebec, so I'll let you in on a little secret: our provincial Liberal Party is pretty much universally hated. So when that poll came out, people went apeshit, the kind of apeshit you thought was solely reserved for video game arguments. THE POLL WAS RIGGED! THE LIBERALS BOUGHT THE POLLING FIRM! And so on.

Two things in particular stood out about that poll. First, it was done through the internet, not by phone. And there's ever-increasing evidence that internet polls aren't that much less reliable, if at all, than ones done by phone (such as this data from the 2012 US presidential election). Yeah, I was surprised too, I would've thought phone polls would've done better than that, but who am I to argue with cold hard facts? Cold hard facts that clearly aren't enough for many people, by the way.

Second, some regions (namely Montreal's suburbs and Quebec City) were willingly overrepresented, with a much larger sample than in other regions. What people don't know, though, is that polling firms then weight each region according to their population. So if a region has 10% of the population, but 20% of the sample, then each person from that region will only be given half a vote to compensate. It's also worth noting that in the case of this particular poll, other regions had the same sample size as usual, meaning that while most polls stick to the 1000 mark, this one was above 1200. But hey, people don't know that, so CLEARLY THE POLL WAS RIGGED.

The real kicker is that a new poll from a different firm, which came out today, has the Liberals in an even more commanding lead - though THAT poll is a little dubious, thanks to a sample of only 665 people after eliminating undecided voters. Still, putting your head in the sand and denying that the Liberals are in the lead because they're morally bankrupt, only care about themselves, are EVIL FEDERALISTS, yadda yadda yadda, just makes you sound stupid. (It's not like the alternatives are more heroic either, though let's not get into that.) When election day comes, if they win, are you going to complain that people were intimidated in the voting booths or something? Man, I'd pay to see the tears.

7 comments:

  1. Man, this is disastrous. Politics are becoming more and more unstable. I'm pretty sure any person stating he'd vote either for PQ or PLQ on any social media would get a death threat at some point. Speaking of PQ, remember how they said they would eliminate the need for "strategic voting" if they were elected during the last elections ? HA.
    The reason it happens in the first place is because of those darn polls.

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    1. That's because it, along with proportional representation, would NEVER benefit those who actually form the government. Hence why it's been on the table for so many years without actually happening.

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  2. I figure you won't want to talk about your own politics, but on the off-chance you will, what do you think about the PQ? Quebec as a whole seems fascinating coming form American politics. We may have some crazy states, but none of them with their own party and secessionist platform.

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    1. That's because none of your states are predominantly occupied by a society with a different language and culture.

      Either way, the PQ can rot in a maggot hole for all I care. Same for independence. Considering how overdependent we are on the other provinces' equalization payments to sustain our bloated public domain, it would be akin to a big collective suicide. And considering the wanton disregard with which we spend their money, if they knew the truth I guarantee THEY'd be the ones begging to secede from US. I mean, fucking KINDERGARTENS are controlled by the government!

      Luckily independence is mostly a thing in my parents' generation, and even they (barely) failed to make it happen when they were given the chance, so it's unlikely it'll happen at all in my lifetime.

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    2. I know one guy who has been speculating that the PQ has actually no intention of seceding. They're talking about it merely for their image, in a similar fashion to when Harper talked about making abortions illegal but never actually did it.
      Again, I'm not the most informed in the domain, I'm just quoting a theory I heard.

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    3. Considering how close they got last time, I don't think they've ever been joking around with this. The only reason they're not doing anything towards it is because support for secession can't seem to get above 40%, and it would be terrible for their image if they blew wads of taxpayer money on a referendy they know they can't win.

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    4. "That's because none of your states are predominantly occupied by a society with a different language and culture."

      That's true, although honestly not so simple. Was gonna describe it but you probably know enough just from osmosis what the USA make-up is. But I'd say our regional differences can be on the same order of magnitude, just I guess too mutually English-speaking to go that route (civil war notwithstanding). Still, in the states Quebec is the first thing people think about regarding Canada from a geography/political standpoint (even if it's the only French-speaking province we still act like everyone there speaks it half the time), so it does stand out in our psyche.

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