ABSTRACT
The results of a poll are estimates of various population characteristics. It is important to determine whether or not the estimation procedure had systematic errors that can result in wrong figures. The documentation of a poll should provide sufficient information to give an indication of the accuracy of the estimates. This chapter presents some background on estimation procedures. It focuses on how the accuracy of the estimates can be computed. The first step in the analysis of the poll data will usually be the estimation of population characteristics, such as totals, means, and percentages of target variables. To compute an estimate, an estimator is required. An estimator is a procedure, a recipe, describing how to compute an estimate. An estimator is only meaningful if it produces estimates that are close to the population characteristics to be estimated. The chapter explains how to compute the sample size for a simple random without replacement.
