Congress hears more and from everyday citizens. How do modern Congressional offices use this information to represent their constituents? Drawing on original interviews a survey of staff, we explore how representation works in practice when new data tools, such as databases downscaled public opinion polls, are available. In contrast with established theories that focus responsiveness, show is t...

The outcome of the 2012 election will have far­ reaching ramifications for the future of U.S. health care. Rarely in a national election have the two major candidates’ views about health care been so diametrically opposed. The views of President Barack Obama and Republican presi­ dential nominee Mitt Romney differ on whether the 2010 Affordable Care Act (ACA) should be implemented or repealed, ...

In this paper we describe a method for weighting surveys of a sub-sample of voters. We focus on the case of Latino voters. And we analyze data for three surveys: two opinion polls leading up to the 2004 presidential election, and the national exit poll from the 2004 election. We take advantage of much data when it is available, the large amount of data describing the demographics of Hispanic ci...

Over the last decade considerable attention has been given to the possibilities of predicting political and other events by observing the outcome of appropriately designed experimental markets. In the Iowa Presidential Stock Market (cf. Forsythe et al. [1992]) the outcome of the U.S. presidential election was predicted successfully through observations of a stock market, where individual experi...

Political candidates often believe they must focus their campaign efforts on a small number of swing voters open for ideological change. Based on the wisdom of opinion polls, this might seem like a good idea. But do most voters really hold their political attitudes so firmly that they are unreceptive to persuasion? We tested this premise during the most recent general election in Sweden, in whi...

Crowd-sourcing is increasingly being used for providing answers to online polls and surveys. However, existing systems, while taking care of the mechanics of attracting crowd workers, poll building, and payment, generally provide little by way of cost-management (e.g. working with a tight budget), time-management (e.g. obtaining results as quickly as possible), and controlling the margin of err...