Once upon a time, there was a kingdom that had a king who liked to run online polls during presidential primary seasons. The polls were great fun, and inspired much passion and joy in those who lived in the kingdom. The king himself was fond of them for another reason: they drew new visitors, which meant that he could get paid more money for the billboards erected inside of the kingdom. The king also sometimes had the opportunity to go on TV and explain to the TV Wise Men what the results of these online polls “meant”, as if they actually meant anything at all!
The residents of the kingdom, and many who listened to the TV Wise Men, were kind men and women who apparently did not understand much about the validity of polling. They did not understand that unless a poll uses a method that is statistically equivalent to a probable voting population, it will be skewed and therefore meaningless. Especially meaningless is a poll that consists entirely of self-selected participants! Every pollster worth his salt, for they were indeed paid salt in those days, knew these truths but somehow the people in the kingdom did not.
Now it happened one day that the king ran a poll, and sadly, the winner was not universally beloved by those in the kingdom. And the people were greatly upset. They had heard that outsiders had participated in the poll, and so they cried out in a loud voice that the poll “wasn’t fair”. Never mind that the online polls in the past had NEVER “been fair”, they had ALWAYS been meaningless, but the people somehow had never known this truth and for some reason the king did not want to reveal it to them. In the past, when a beloved candidate had won, there had been much rejoicing ... the people missed those times of merriment.
The king faced a predicament. How would he respond to the cries of his people? Would he tell them the truth, that the polls had always been meaningless, they were primarily a way to increase his treasury and enable him to go on the TV? Or would he devise another plan?
Lucky for the king, he had heard stories about the outsiders. In one an outsider had claimed that the king’s online poll had a flaw, that it was possible to cheat and register multiple votes. The king actually smiled when he heard this news, because he knew he could use it for his own advantage. He could repeat this story about the outsiders, and the people would believe that it was only because of the dastardly cheating that the un-beloved candidate had won.
And so that is what the king did. The people were happy, the king was happy, and he was also secretly delighted that he would be perceived as a great hero by the TV Wise Men. He knew the TV Wise Men would be delighted to spread tales of cheating by the outsiders, because they had already done so in the past, with a false tale of chair-throwing and thug-like behavior.
But wouldn’t the TV Wise Men require some kind of evidence, that “cheating” was in fact responsible for the tremendous victory by the un-beloved candidate? Wasn’t it possible that a tiny bit of cheating might have occurred, but it was insignificant in comparison to the great numbers of outsiders who had actually participated in the poll? How much cheating had actually occurred?
The king laughed out loud. The TV wise men had not required evidence of chair-throwing when they had spread those other false tales. They would not require evidence now. His plan was perfect. He looked forward to the merriment of his people, and to his next appearance on the TV.