IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/feb/natura/00304.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Do advance letters improve pre-election forecast accuracy?

Author

Listed:
  • Christopher Mann

Abstract

The survey methodology literature has debated whether advance letters to potential survey respondents will reduce nonresponse bias and thereby improve the accuracy of preelection forecasts. This research note analyzes the results of experiments conducted in Maryland, New York, and Pennsylvania in which advance letters were sent to a random sample of potential survey respondents to 2002 preelection surveys. We find a significant increase in the overall response rate, although notably less than in past studies. However, the advance letters did not improve the representativeness of survey respondents or the accuracy of the election forecasts.

Suggested Citation

  • Christopher Mann, 2005. "Do advance letters improve pre-election forecast accuracy?," Natural Field Experiments 00304, The Field Experiments Website.
    • Handle: RePEc:feb:natura:00304
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://s3.amazonaws.com/fieldexperiments-papers2/papers/00304.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Robert Voogt & Hetty Van Kempen, 2002. "Nonresponse Bias and Stimulus Effects in the Dutch National Election Study," Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, Springer, vol. 36(4), pages 325-345, November.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Lynn, Peter, 2014. "Targeted initial letters to longitudinal survey sample members: effects on response rates, response speed, and sample composition," Understanding Society Working Paper Series 2014-08, Understanding Society at the Institute for Social and Economic Research.
    2. Michael W. Robbins & Geoffrey Grimm & Brian Stecher & V. Darleen Opfer, 2018. "A Comparison of Strategies for Recruiting Teachers Into Survey Panels," SAGE Open, , vol. 8(3), pages 21582440187, August.
    3. Christopher B. Mann, 2005. "Unintentional Voter Mobilization: Does Participation in Preelection Surveys Increase Voter Turnout?," The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, , vol. 601(1), pages 155-168, September.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Philip S. Brenner, 2021. "Effects of Nonresponse, Measurement, and Coverage Bias in Survey Estimates of Voting," Social Science Quarterly, Southwestern Social Science Association, vol. 102(2), pages 939-954, March.
    2. Stocké, Volker & Stark, Tobias, 2005. "Stichprobenverzerrung durch Item-Nonresponse in der international vergleichenden Politikwissenschaft," Sonderforschungsbereich 504 Publications 05-43, Sonderforschungsbereich 504, Universität Mannheim;Sonderforschungsbereich 504, University of Mannheim.
    3. Tom W. Smith & Jibum Kim, 2013. "An Assessment of the Multi-level Integrated Database Approach," The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, , vol. 645(1), pages 185-221, January.
    4. John Robert Warren & Andrew Halpern-Manners, 2012. "Panel Conditioning in Longitudinal Social Science Surveys," Sociological Methods & Research, , vol. 41(4), pages 491-534, November.
    5. Stocké, Volker & Stark, Tobias, 2005. "Stichprobenverzerrung durch Item-Nonresponse in der international vergleichenden Politikwissenschaft," Papers 05-43, Sonderforschungsbreich 504.
    6. Volker Hüfken, 2010. "Supplementary questionnaire and nonresponse-results from the German ISSP survey," Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, Springer, vol. 44(4), pages 607-622, June.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:feb:natura:00304. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Francesca Pagnotta (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.fieldexperiments.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.