The Scenario:

A local news organization wants to know how likely it is that California voters will vote to remove Governor Newsom from office in the upcoming recall election. They hired a well-known and highly respected polling company, HHT Polling, to conduct the survey. HHT creates a survey and places it on the website of the local news organization. The local news organization publicizes the survey in their weekly email newletter blast, mentions it during their nightly newcast, and puts a link on the front page of their website. The survey is completed online by anyone who chooses to participate. The survey was available in English..

Survey respondents are asked to decide to what degree they agreed with the following statements:

• Governor Newsom's extremely restrictive lockdowns shuttered small businesses and damaged the California economy unnecessarily.
• Governor Newsom's careful management of California's response to the deadly COVID-19 pandemic was both successful and properly executed.

The possible answers were "Strongly Agree", "Agree", "Neither Agree or Disagree", "Disagree", or "Strongly Disagree".941 people responded to the survey.13% of the respondents said that they "Disagree" or "Strongly Disagree" that "Governor Newsom's careful management of California's response to the deadly COVID-19 pandemic was both successful and properly executed."

The Questions:

1. Was there a sampling frame used in the above scenario? If so, what was it?
2. What is the sampling techniques used in the above scenario?
3. Is the sampling method a valid or biased method of sampling? Explain why.
4. Identify one potential source of bias other than the sampling method from the information given and explain why it leads to bias. (Only use the information given, do not speculate about information not provided).
5. If the local news organization did the survey again, would you expect that 13 % of the respondents would "Disagree" or "Strongly Disagree" that "Governor Newsom's careful management of California's response to the deadly COVID-19 pandemic was both successful and properly executed."? Why or why not?
6. Based on the results of this survey, can the local news organization be sure that they have an understanding of how Californians feel about the job Governor Newsom is doing? Why or why not? (Hint: use what you know about surveys and sampling to answer this question)