Felon Disenfranchisement Analysis

In the American political system, opinion polls are an important way to measure the general public’s ideological beliefs and opinions on certain key issues. According to Patterson, a public opinion poll is, “a poll or survey in which a relatively few individuals are interviewed to estimate the opinions of a whole population” (2013). These types of polls are also used to see which candidate the American people prefer in presidential election years. This election cycle is no different, especially in the battleground state of Florida. Both Mr. Trump and Secretary Clinton are vying to win the support of Floridians. Florida is a battleground state because of its twenty-nine electoral votes, and sometimes can be a deciding factor in which candidate …show more content…
Approximately 21.4 percent of the African American population who live in Florida cannot vote in elections due to felon disenfranchisement (Lai & Lee 2016). As Patterson similarly explains, though when explaining the science of polling instead of felon disenfranchisement, using a jar filled with 1,000 marbles will represent the state of Florida for this explanation. This explanation will not even demonstrate either the number of felon disenfranchised Hispanic or Caucasian demographics in Florida, but will just focus on the African American population in Florida, like the article from Lai & Lee. In a pool of 1,000 marbles, 170 of those marbles represent the African American population in Florida, and 36 marbles represent the number of African Americans in Florida who cannot vote. Likewise, 36 of the 1000 marbles selected to be polled can respond to the polls, yet cannot follow through and vote as they polled they would. According to Patterson, “although respondents may answer the question[s]..., their responses cannot be regarded as valid, [as] scholars label such responses as ‘non-opinions’” (2013). Therefore, data from polls collected in Florida should be viewed more cautiously as the potential for error is