AVAST Survey Predicts Presidential Election Winner, Thumbs Nose at Gallup
There have been countless polls that have tried to predict who is ahead in the Presidential race, Barack Obama or Mitt Romney, but AVAST Software thinks it has them all beat. Yes, that AVAST Software, the same one that makes security software, including a popular free antivirus program named after itself. What's AVAST Software's play here? Plain and simple, the security vendor, which is headquartered in Prague, Czech Republic, claims its poll had less to do with politics than its desire to test its ability to gather opinions from a large sample size in a short period of time.
"Our reasons for doing the survey weren't political in nature," said Vince Steckler, AVAST Software CEO. "We usually use our surveys as an instrument for improving our software and services, but we wanted to see how quickly we’d be able to obtain an extremely large, targeted sample of public opinion."
Towards that end, AVAST Software targeted its more than 10 million users of its free antivirus program in the U.S. and its territories, gathering data from over 100,000 people in just two days. That's a sample size 100 times larger than what's typically taken by polling firms like Gallup, AVAST Software says.
Source: AVAST Software
So, who's going to win? Based on AVAST Software's poll, Mitt Romney is going to win the election. Out of those polled, 48.9 percent of users who are registered voters said they will definitely vote for Romney, compared to 46.1 percent who will vote for Obama. AVAST Software said that works out to 290 electoral votes for Romney and 230 for Obama.
Interestingly, even though the majority said they're voting for Romney, 47.6 percent said they expect Obama to win, compared to 39.6 percent who expect to Romney to prevail. If making a prediction based on expectations, Obama comes out ahead with 349 electoral votes versus 189 for Romney.
Again, this is all ancillary to AVAST's Software's true intention. which is to test the ability of the customized message function in its antivirus software to reach a large user base in a short period of time.
"Our reasons for doing the survey weren't political in nature," said Vince Steckler, AVAST Software CEO. "We usually use our surveys as an instrument for improving our software and services, but we wanted to see how quickly we’d be able to obtain an extremely large, targeted sample of public opinion."
Towards that end, AVAST Software targeted its more than 10 million users of its free antivirus program in the U.S. and its territories, gathering data from over 100,000 people in just two days. That's a sample size 100 times larger than what's typically taken by polling firms like Gallup, AVAST Software says.
Source: AVAST Software
So, who's going to win? Based on AVAST Software's poll, Mitt Romney is going to win the election. Out of those polled, 48.9 percent of users who are registered voters said they will definitely vote for Romney, compared to 46.1 percent who will vote for Obama. AVAST Software said that works out to 290 electoral votes for Romney and 230 for Obama.
Interestingly, even though the majority said they're voting for Romney, 47.6 percent said they expect Obama to win, compared to 39.6 percent who expect to Romney to prevail. If making a prediction based on expectations, Obama comes out ahead with 349 electoral votes versus 189 for Romney.
Again, this is all ancillary to AVAST's Software's true intention. which is to test the ability of the customized message function in its antivirus software to reach a large user base in a short period of time.
