This is a very good point... since Rasmussen is fully automated, he can't tell who is actually answering the poll. So here's a question: Who is most likely to pick up a ringing telephone in your house? My answer, in order of likelihood are:
1. My teenaged daughter
2. My wife
3. My 5-year old daughter
4. I just let it ring and let the answering machine get it
5. Me
Since other polls show Kerry ahead amongst Women and 18-22 year olds, there's a good likelihood that his polls are oversampling these demographics.
That is an EXCELLENT point about who answers the telephone. The man in the house will usually be the last one to answer.
Also, isn't it a lot easier to play around with an automated poll...just start pressing numbers for whoever? Especially if you are a teenager.
I thought Rasmussen might be on to something about automated phone polls...not a bad idea..but you lose a lot of screening that operators perform for other polling companies. Then Rasmussen plays around with it and "weights" it to reflect what he thinks will happen this election cycle. Is he not demonstrating we absolutely don't need a poll if he already is guessing how people will vote in the election based on his own beliefs and not on numbers shown in the polling??