Is RealClearPolitics fudging numbers?

Not sure if the website RealClearpolitics.com is fudging polling data or not but I had been following it quite keenly for the past week or so and I noticed that occasionally they would shift data around, depending on what day it is.

For example, on the "latest election poll" link, which shows a tally of which candidate is leading, by poll type, on some days you may add up Obama leading in 6 polls and Romney 3 but the next day, the data shifts and when you count again for the day in question, the count may then be Obama 6, Romney 1.

So, what happened to the 2 polls for Romney on the previous day? It appears they sometimes move those results to the present day, hence it appears Romney now leads in 2 "new" polls.

I am not sure if this is due to overflow or there is a science behind it but I looked at results at various times of the day and the results still seem to be shifting around.

Has anyone else noticed this? It's not a big bother but can be misleading to folks using this site as science.

A truer tally of poll numbers would be to look at results more then 72 hours old. At least those numbers are settled.

Latest Election Polls - RealClearPolitics

Originally posted by Jaellma
Not sure if the website RealClearpolitics.com is fudging polling data or not but I had been following it quite keenly for the past week or so and I noticed that occasionally they would shift data around, depending on what day it is.

For example, on the "latest election poll" link, which shows a tally of which candidate is leading, by poll type, on some days you may add up Obama leading in 6 polls and Romney 3 but the next day, the data shifts and when you count again for the day in question, the count may then be Obama 6, Romney 1.

So, what happened to the 2 polls for Romney on the previous day? It appears they sometimes move those results to the present day, hence it appears Romney now leads in 2 "new" polls.

I am not sure if this is due to overflow or there is a science behind it but I looked at results at various times of the day and the results still seem to be shifting around.

Has anyone else noticed this? It's not a big bother but can be misleading to folks using this site as science.

A truer tally of poll numbers would be to look at results more then 72 hours old. At least those numbers are settled.

Latest Election Polls - RealClearPolitics

some of those polls are "rolling polls"