Question

A Shortly before a 1992 mayoral election, a local radio station conducted a Internet survey of voters. Based on the results of the survey, the magazine predicted that the Democratic candidate would beat the Republican candidate by a landslide. In fact, exactly the opposite happened. The trouble with the survey was that the radio station was a largely liberal station and few Republicans visited its Web site. This is a classic example of an error in which phase of inferential statistics?

Answer 1

It seems like the error is in the selection for the data. The station should have used a random sample of people in the area, not a sample of listeners.

Answer 2

I think it's the "try to make sense at all" phase. ;-)