Death penalty, again In the survey on the death penalty you read about in the
Step-by-Step Example, the Gallup Poll actually split the sample at random,
asking 510 respondents the question quoted earlier, "Generally speaking, do
you believe the death penalty is applied fairly or unfairly in this country
today?" The other 510 were asked, "Generally speaking, do you believe the
death penalty is applied unfairly or fairly in this country today?" Seems like
the same question, but sometimes the order of the choices matters. Suppose
that for the second way of phrasing it, \(64 \%\) said they thought the death
penalty was fairly applied. (Recall that \(53 \%\) of the original 510 thought
the same thing.)
a. What kind of bias may be present here?
b. If we combine them, considering the overall group to be one larger random
sample of 1020 respondents, what is a \(95 \%\) confidence interval for the
proportion of the general public that thinks the death penalty is being fairly
applied?
c. How does the margin of error based on this pooled sample compare with the
margins of error from the separate groups? Why?