• Viking_Hippie@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    0
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    1 year ago

    1000 is pretty much a compromise between the ideal and what’s realistically possible. Most opinion polls have a sample size between 800 and 1500, with those under 1k considered much less reliable, around 1k pretty much standard and 1500 extra rigorous.

    There’s a lot of technical details on how to select those 800-1500 people to be reliably representative of a much larger population and different poll takers use different methodology, but that’s all too deep in the weeds for a lemmy reply and some of it is outside the scope of my knowledge as a curious and thus pretty well-informed layperson.

    And you’re absolutely right about the EC on all counts. That and the filibuster are both examples of a supposed democracy being EXTREMELY undemocratic.