9. (2 pts) Florida voters. Florida has played a key role in recent presidential
ID: 3234454 • Letter: 9
Question
9. (2 pts) Florida voters. Florida has played a key role in recent presidential elections. Voter
registration records in February 2014 show that show that 39% of Florida voters are registered as
Democrats and 35% as Republicans. (Most of the other did not choose a party.) To test a random
digit dialing device that is planned for use to poll voters for the upcoming election, you use it to call
250 randomly chosen residential telephones in Florida. Of the registered voters contacted, 34% are
registered Democrats. Is each of the boldface numbers a parameter or a statistic or neither? Identify
& explain your answers.
My thought is that 34% and 39% are parameters because they describe the entire population of registered voters, but the last number, 34%, I am not sure if this is a 'statistic' or 'neither'. Doesnt a statistic have to make some inference about an entire population using a sample? The number they report is not making an inference about the entire population it is just saying that of those that we called (a sample), this percent were democrat... So could it be neither? Thanks for your help!
Explanation / Answer
The parameters are 39% and 35%.
The number 34% is statistics beucase it shows the proportion of Democrats in the sample of 250 randomly registered voter.
It is not necessary that statistics make inference about the population.
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