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think outside the checkbox

How not to report on polls.

Check out this story at the CBC. It's not alone, it's just the most stark example of this problem I've seen recently.The liberals are at 32.6, the Conservatives are at 34.8. The difference is 2.2. Both of those numbers have a +/- of 1.7%. Which means the Liberals are between 30.9 and 34.3, 19 times out of 20. The Conservatives are between 33.1 and 36.5, 19 times out of 20.Those two ranges overlap for 1.2%, only 0.5 less than the margin of error. So that tells me that they are basically tied now, just like they were two weeks ago.They report a 0.9% drop for the Liberals this way:The Liberal numbers in the poll released Thursday are a drop from the 33.5 percent support reported in a similar EKOS poll conducted last week.Now, the difference between 33.5% and 32.6% is 0.9%. Which is inside the margin of error. So has the support for the Liberals actually declined? We don't know.Headline: Support doesn't change, parties still tied.Now look what the actual headline was.