Question

On one episode of his show, a radio show host encouraged his listeners to visit his website and vote in a poll about proposed tax increases. Of the 4821 people who vote, 4277 are against the proposed increases. To which of the following populations should the results of this poll be generalized?

(a) All people who have ever listened to this show
(b) All people who listened to this episode of the show
(c) All people who visited the show host's website
(d) All people who voted in the poll
(e) All people who voted against the proposed increases

Answer 1

(d) All people who voted in the poll.

Explanation:

The poll can only be generalized to the people who voted in the poll.

Out of this poll we get a estimation of the population proportion. But about the people who listen to the show but did not vote in the poll or even the ones that visit the website but did not vote, we can not infere nothing using the results of the poll as we don't know if they are against the proposed increases or not.

If the people who voted in the poll were a representative sample of certain group, then we could generalize the results for this group.