Question

You obtain the following results from an election poll.
   a) Liberals obtain 38% with a sample size of 500.Will they receive over 40% support in the election
   b) Liberals obtain 51% with a sample size of 500000. Will they receive a majority vote in the election presuming that 50% is the threshold for a majority government.       

Answer 1

Situation A:

In this Scenario, Sample of 500 hs been selected. Out of that 38% obtained by Liberal. If we increases the sample size, there might be chances of getting 40% of that samples. So Liberals getting 40% depends on incresing the samples and testing those samples once again for getting more accurate results as always in sampling if we increase the samples, the risk from sampling could get reduced.

Situation B:

In this Scenario, sample size is 500000. But we don't have the information about the total population out of which the sample of 500000 is drawn. If sample size is considerably larger, then chances of getting majority vote is there as the sampling gives the result of 51%. But if the sampe size is very less than the total population, then there might be huge amount of sampling risk leading to an actual outcome which is different from the expected outcome as determined by sampling.