Tons of different things to write about, but I got this email just now and it is relevant to a question I'd had. My question was whether pollsters were calling cell phones. Could they get cell phone numbers? One theory about why pollsters called the Truman/Dewey election wrong in 1948 is that pollsters relied on telephones and people without phones were more likely to vote for Truman. That raises the question about modern-day polls. There aren't any directories I know of for cell phones, and many younger voters have cell phones and no land lines. If younger voters are more likely to vote Obama and older voters more likely to vote McCain, then calling land lines only would bias the polls.
From a discussion on Citydata.com
Most if not all polls use land line phones to conduct the poll. This eliminates many if not all of a major group of voters. McCain's voters tend to be older less mobile groups of people. They are more likely to have land line phones. Obama's supporters are more likely to be younger, many have only mobile phones, never even having land line.
More Americans go for cell phones, drop landlines
The percentage of people who do not land line phones.
25% ages 18 to 29, no landline.
12.4% ages 30 to 44, no landline.
6.1% ages 45 to 64, no landline.
1.9% ages over 65, no landline.
15.8% of all homes, no landline.
22.4% of poor, no land line
All this was stimulated by the email I got today: [see update below, this is apparently a hoax]
REMEMBER: Cell Phone Numbers Go Public today
REMINDER.... all cell phone numbers are being released to telemarketing companies tomorrow and you will start to receive sale calls.
.... YOU WILL BE CHARGED FOR THESE CALLS
To prevent this, call the following number from your cell phone:
888-382-1222.
It is the National DO NOT CALL list. It will only take a minute of your time. It blocks your number for five (5) years. You must call from the cell phone number you want to have blocked. You cannot call from a different phone number.
HELP OTHERS BY PASSING THIS ON TO ALL YOUR FRIENDS.. It takes about 20 seconds.
or go to www.donotcall.gov
This seems to confirm my belief that up til now there were no directories of cell phone numbers.
[Update: Sept. 3: After I posted this, I realized that I hadn't checked on the email, something I would normally do before posting something like this. And, sure enough, a reader has sent me the following email:
Hi,
I was alarmed to see on your blog that solicitors might start calling my and my children's cell phones and using up the minutes so I went and listed them with the do not call registry. But then immediately afterward I got suspicious and did a little web search and came up with this page from the FCC that says it is an urban myth that cell phone numbers will be published in a directory and that solicitors will begin calling cell phones. Federal law prohibits solicitors from calling cell phones, and the FCC says cell phone users do not need to register with the do not call registry. The page was last modified in late 2007, but I assume the law hasn't changed since then.
http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2005/04/dnc.shtm
Shana Cxxxxxxxxx
One clue is that there is no date - it just says 'today'. Shana, thanks for the heads up.]
Hi, Steve. I found your blog when I Googled the phrase "voter polls land lines." I have been asking the question for weeks now about how the polls can be accurate if younger voters don't have land lines. No one seems to be able to answer the question of whether polls are adjusted to compensate for the disenfranchisement of an entire bloc of voters that is more likely to vote in this year's election than ever before! Thank you for raising the issue--although I wonder why it's not being asked (and answered) in a more public forum.
ReplyDeleteI'm an Obama supporter (have been since 2004), so of course I feel good about my hunch that most of these younger voters would tend toward my candidate. (If the delegates at the RNC are any indication, then Republicans are predominantly old, white, and male.) Such a revelation (the disenfranchisement of the under-thirty crowd) would mean that while the polls show the two candidates in a tie, Obama would in fact be ahead--significantly.
Surely the [very smart] Obama campaign has thought about this issue. Do you think perhaps that they believe it is in their best interest simply not to raise attention to the fact that the polls are skewed?
I see that you live in Alaska. I haven't read your other blogs, but I imagine you have good insight about Palin. I'll be reading more!
Best wishes,
Nancy in Columbia, SC
I, too, found your blog when Googling "polling" and "land lines". You & Nancy echo my musings on this matter. Yet: See http://www.pollster.com/blogs/new_pew_data_on_cell_phones.php Perhaps not as strong a factor as we might think?
ReplyDeleteSorry you live in Alaska, Steve. Palin's a fundamentalist laughingstock. Seems like too many Americans are too willfully ignorant (read, stupid) to notice that right now. Hope that changes, or we could be in for at least four more years of God-ordained war after McCain passes. -- Chuck in Ann Arbor
Chuck, Thanks for the thoughtful comments. Nancy got me to thinking about getting better data so yesterday I put up a new post with some of the findings from the Pew study. I've linked to it in the beginning of this post, but relatively few people are using the link. And Google keeps sending people to this first post.
ReplyDeleteIn general polls, the Pew study suggests the bias doesn't make any difference. But they do say it makes a difference in specialized populations. So, if African-American and Hispanic voters and young voters will be critical, then it could still make a difference.
Go to the newer post.
On your second point, Sarah Palin, as packaged by her Rovian handlers, is everything you say. But as someone who has watched her for several years now, I would warn both the Republicans and the Democrats to be careful about how you fill in the missing pieces. I've been saying pretty consistently here that I don't think she's ready to be vice president, but she isn't the fundamentalist bimbo that the left is portraying either.
But McCain has done a great job of distracting everyone from the issues of the war, the economy, housing, loss of basic rights, corporate takeover of government functions, George W. Bush, and on and on.
why the fuck would they give out peoples #'s if we dont give it to promtors. we dont want them to contact us when; we want to get them when we need them!!!!!! yall all fucked up in the game
ReplyDeleteim fuckin pissed if this is true i got enough people callin me i dont wanrt just any body calling me with bullshit
ReplyDeleteare ya promoting these companies in the securety lock
ReplyDeleteI guess I contributed to this blitz of three emails by having the alarmist email in big, colored font and the part that says it isn't so in small print at the bottom.
ReplyDeleteBut it is nice when people read a whole post before they comment. But I'll add some warning information.