Dear Correspondents:

Before e-mailing the pollster to complain that the pollster is “cooking the books” for candidate so-and-so because the poll includes 15 points more members of Party A than members of Party B, please check the official party registration statistics for the state in question, because it’s probably going to show, if the state in question [...]

So, What’s All This About Party Identification in Election Polls?

Can of worms, I hereby declare you open.
OK. If you’re paying attention to the Presidential race, you probably have noticed a few controversies over election polling in the past few weeks. Here’s a short summary:

RNC holds convention, picks Sarah Palin as VP.
Various polls show McCain/Palin with pretty large surge.
Various blogger types complain the polls are [...]