FAQ ABOUT THE AJC’S 2018 REPUBLICAN PRIMARY POLL

Who conducted the poll? The poll was conducted April 19-26 for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution and Channel 2 Action News by the School of Public and International Affairs Survey Research Center at the University of Georgia. Students made the calls, under the direction of M.V. “Trey” Hood III, the director of the center and a professor of political science. Who selected the questions? The AJ Created the survey, which included several questions we have asked in previous polls. Whom did w etalk to? Callers contacted 507 registered voters from across the state. The numbers were randomly drawn froma voter registration list obtained through the sampling vendor Revily. The company maintains a database constructed fromthe state voter registration lists. Through commercial sources, phone numbers have been appended to the individual records (registrants) that make up these lists. Approximately 65 percent of the calls weremade to cellphone numbers; 35 percent to landlines. What is weighting and how do you do it? Some adjustments aremade to the total population of people surveyed to accurately reflect the demographics of the typical Republican primary voter. What is the “margin of error” for the poll and what exactly

does that mean? Nomatter how carefully a poll is conducted, there will always be some measure of uncertainty when you survey asmall portion of a larger population, such as the state of Georgia. Themargin of error is themeasure of the uncertainty in the sample. Themargin of error thatwe report accounts for these sources of uncertainty. For example, with a margin of error of 4 percentage points, a candidate polling at 50 percent could have support of anywhere between 46 percent and 54 percent, with a 95 percent level of confidence. That means that if we drew 100 different samples using the same methodology, then no more than five times out of 100should chance variations in the sample cause the results to vary bymore than 4 percentage points fromthe answers thatwould be obtained if all Georgians were polled.