By Tom Hayes, Publisher, Edgelings
Nip and tuck. That’s what most political polls describe the race between Barrack Obama and John McCain. Might as well throw the polls in the trash. Turns out that standard political polls exclude cell-phone only voters-those young, tech savvy, largely Democratic (but not always) voters-who no longer bother to install a landline in their homes or apartments. If that is the case, we know every little about true public opinion and this presidential election is probably not close at all.
I know at least a dozen people who don’t have phones in their homes. Don’t get me wrong; these folks are very connected and often have multiple cell phones in their lives; they simply no longer bother with a redundant landline in their homes. And my friends are not alone. More than 32 million American adults have now ditched landlines for cell phones, up from 5 percent in 2004, according to a recent federal study. Problem is: the opinions of these people are not captured by current political polling. That’s right, the pollsters don’t call cell phones. As a result of this structural flaw, a giant swath of American opinion is missed and as a result we have no idea where this race for the White House stands today.
This oversight is another example of how the political process has failed to keep up with our changing culture-a culture being rapidly reshaped by technology. Just as political operatives everywhere were overwhelmed by Senator Obama’s ability to raise a quarter of a billion dollars in $100 increments via the Internet, the polling professionals failed to appreciate that a big and growing block of Americans don’t see the logic in having both mobile and landlines. It’s a new mindset created by our emerging mobility and technical power. And frankly, even if pollsters started calling cell phones tonight, they won’t find the same kinds of people at the other end of the handset. First, the young, tech savvy voter isn’t going to stop the car or leave the restaurant to take a survey. They probably aren’t going to take your call, at all, frankly, because they don’t know you. And they certainly won’t be solicited by some stranger to think or act or vote in a particular manner. Instead, he or she is getting all the information they want from a small coterie of friends and associates who share ideas, review and recommend products, and gossip about stuff they have already decided to care about. They likely prefer to chat via IM, maybe a leisurely email, more likely a Twitter or Pownce blast. As such, their attitudes and opinions probably won’t be the same as the land-bound phone owner.
Nope, even if the political pollsters start calling the cell-phone only households right now, they would probably be amazed by how out of touch they are with the new America. Forget Red State or Blue State, the question is: are you wireless or wireline?
“young, tech savvy, largely Democratic (but not always)”
what makes them assume that? I know at least 3 Republicans that are cell-phone only in the 20-45 range...
they do it to save $$
We’re VOIP, since it comes with our internet and cable package. I guess that’s a landline, but we also have cells.
I have had a few weird polling calls this year. Both times they asked me preliminary questions and then said I didn’t qualify for their poll....I don’t know why I didn’t qualify, I imagine it had to do with demographics, but they wouldn’t say why I didn’t get to take the survey/poll.
I distinctly remember hearing about the wireless vs. landline issue in 2004, and that Kerry supporters were largely wireless and were therefore underpolled. Turned out to not be a major factor.
this is just untrue
polls do call cellphones
pew gallup the ny times cbs are just a few of the pollsters that call cellphones
here is an article that states obama is ahead among cell phone users, they go it by calling cellphones
Or those with caller ID and refuse to answer phone calls with names like "Republican Party", "Democratic Party", "Out of Area", "Private Call", etc.
Yup. We'uns are stickin' to are guns and religion and not botherin' with none of that there hi-tech VOIP, Skype or them other newfangled inventions like that there email.
'Scuse me, I gotta' go reset a recalcitrant WiFi router.
How does Mr. Tom Hayes know this? Those young, tech-savvy voters by his own admission:
...the opinions of these people are not captured by current political polling.
That's right. And neither are the opinions captured of the rest of American voters. What is done is psuedo-polling with liberal (pun intended) application of secret sauce to get the results pollsters and their sponsors want.
Here's the result of my unscientific poll of one (very small sample size): A solid win by the McCain-Paulin ticket. Possibly a blowout victory!
I don’t like cell phones very much and use them very rarely, but I hate land lines. I would switch to a better cell phone and dump my voip line if the pricing was more competitive and I had a means to fax things easily via cell phone, regular analog POTs (plain old telephone service is nuts if you want internet access). Of course, I haven’t really delved into the problem lately, but I may drop my landline entirely later on). I can’t stand legacy technology.
On the other hand: couch potatoes watching TV are there to answer the phone.
Take your pick on how that might skew results....
As for this article’s theory, there are probably a dozen reasons for Obama supporters to think happy thoughts and equally many for McCain supporters to think happy thoughts. While McCain and co are doing that, never forget that the way to win is to attack and don’t stop until the enemy is defeated totally. That hasn’t happened yet, and there will be reversals between now and then.
I don’t answer my phone if I do not recognize the name or number on my caller ID. If they were to call me, they would get my answering machine.
I imagine there are lots of people that do the same.
I've had no land line for 3 yrs now [since Rita in 2005] and even when I did I wouldn't take polling questions. I think the pollsters are adept at factoring in/out these kind of anomalies.
The Gallup daily tracking poll includes cell-phone only registered voters. A few other polls do also.
I wonder if the no call list also makes a lot of difference or whether it applies. There are a lot of people on that list.
Do polls exclude intelligent, politically savvy voters, who would tend to vote Republican, because they are WORKING and miss the calls made by pollsters during the middle of the WORK day?