SCSU Students Conduct Election Poll

Saint Cloud State University students have been hard at work collecting responses for a statewide election poll.

Assistant professor Jim Cottrill, who is also the Political Science Department chair and co-director of the SCSU Survey Research Center, says they start with an open-ended question about what is the most important issue in the election. It’s followed up with questions about the significance of inflation and abortion. Then individual races were talked about. Cottrill explains the methodology further.

“We use a random digit dialing sample. It’s based on a collection of phone numbers from the state of Minnesota and we purchased them from a company called Dynata. About 86% of it is cell phone and maybe 14% is landline. So, there’s not very many landlines left in our sampling.”

Cottrill says it is important to get a random sample of respondents that looks like the overall population, not just across political parties but along age, gender, religion, social class, and other metrics. To reach everyone, calls were made six days per week.

“The dates of calling were between October 10th and October 30th. And we would call every day except Fridays. We would mix up the times of calling. So Monday through Thursday, it would usually be evenings 4:30 to 9:30. But Saturday we’d have a calling shift between 11:00 [a.m.] and 4:00 [p.m.], and then Sunday 3:00 to 8:00.”

Cottrill says the polling operation is educational first and foremost. He believes most students who take part have a better appreciation for what goes into the survey process and the amount of error involved. Cottrill says polls are estimates, not sports scores.

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