Pepper theoretically wins Hispanic vote -- or not

Down at Pepper headquarters the other day, they were taking particular pride in their performance with Cincinnati's Hispanic voters. The latest WCPO/Survey USA poll had David Pepper with 45 percent of the vote, compared to 17 percent for Mark L. Mallory, 13 percent for Alicia Reece, and 8 percent for Charlie Winburn.

They wondered: Was it Pepper's initiative to liberalize legal identification for Mexican and Guatemalan immigrants? Or is it that his neighborhood strategy is resonating in Hispanic enclaves like Carthage and Lower Price Hill?

Probably neither. It turns out that Survey USA polled just three Hispanic voters, out of 504 likely voters. That gives a margin of error of plus or minus 58.9 percentage points.

Survey USA Editor Jay Leve said the pollsters estimate that Hispanics make up just 0.6 percent of Cincinnati's voting population.

"Nothing can be concluded from what those three Hispanics say. No words should be written about Hispanics in Cincinnati," he said in an e-mail. "Even if 100 percent of the Hispanic likely voters in Cincinnati all got together and agreed to vote for ONE of the candidates, it would not influence the outcome of the election."

So how did Survey USA get such precise numbers? Presumably the numbers were weighted to account for the city's demographic makeup and the pollster's predictions of who the likely voters will be -- but Leve declined to explain the magic formula.