Posted on 10/12/2004 8:03:41 AM PDT by the_devils_advocate_666
CHARLESTON (AP) -- About 1,200 Marshall University students are among more than 2.7 million young Americans who have been silenced by political polls because they use only cell phones.
Pollsters can be fined $500 if they violate a Federal Communications Commission rule against calling wireless phones because the phones' owners must pay for every call received.
That means the 6 percent of Americans and 14 percent of young Americans who have no landline phone never show up in political polls, according to a July estimate by the Yankee Group, the consultant whose estimates the FCC uses in its annual reports on wireless usage. That's more than the entire margin of error for most major polls.
Marshall University started pulling the telephone plugs in eight of its dorms in March and is not the only college to do so. Campuses from Morrisville State and Mount Saint Mary colleges in New York to American University in Washington, D.C., have gone wireless.
By next fall, Marshall's Twin Towers will go wireless and the transition away from landlines will be complete for all 2,000-plus students living on campus.
Dave Spencer went wireless-only long before the rest of the campus did. The 28-year-old Marshall senior abandoned his landline five years ago. So have many of his friends.
''I can think of at least seven off the top of my head'' who don't have traditional phones, he said. Spencer didn't know pollsters couldn't call him. Neither did Corey Strimer, a graduate student at WVU.
Because it's difficult to poll them, nobody knows who cell phone users support for president. In late February, Rock the Vote asked only wireless phone users whom they would vote for in November. Twenty-nine percent said President Bush, and 55 percent said whomever the Democrats ran. But those responders called the pollster themselves, which is not a scientific random sample.
This is a non-issue from a statistical standpoint.
This does not just effect people who've given up their landline.
I have a landline, but I seldom answer it - I check voicemail and decide who and when to respond. I'm guessing many other busy Republican professionals do likewise.
That was how Dean ran his campaign, remember?
All his hip supporters had cell phones and couldn't be reached in polling, but boy they'd show up.
And they should all get an "F" in Statistics 101.
Pollsters are trying very hard to model for the cell-phone-only crowd.
They are doing it, largely, by overweighting the responses that they get from the demographics which they believe to be more heavily cell-phone-only.
The problems that this raises are two. First, are they getting the match of demographics and the percentage of cell-phone-only people right, i.e., is the weighting factor correct? Second, are the members of the cell-phone-only demographic who DO have a land-line (and, hence, are polled) representative of those who do not, in absolute numbers, in voting registration, in likeliness to vote, and in political preference?
I suspect that a lot of the disparity in polls being taken at the same time now may owe to the different approaches the pollsters are taking to the above questions.
I expect that every polling organization is going to be devoting a tremendous amount of resources towards exit polling this November and asking every single person polled whether they are cell-phone-only. This will create a much more accurate model of the size and propensities of the cell-phone-only likely-voter cohort.
Exactly. I think that Zogby has been polling people on the pay phones located down at the corner next to the welfare office and across the street from the abortion clinic and in the bathroom at the gay bar.
Obvious exceptions, but polls are, by nature, generalities, so I stand by my hunch.
So what? I've had a land line in my name for almost forty years and no pollster has ever called me either.
take a breath :)
Well, half-right on point #3 --- you do live in an apartment, as opposed to a condo or equity-type real estate.
In short, somewhat more mobile in your living arrangement than someone who has a mortgage.
Hobson Corrals Gallup?; Zogby's Last Ride?; Mason Dixon Hits Roadblock?
Either this guy started late, or he is a loser.
Maybe he has to work and cannot afford to take 12-15 hours every semester. Few people these days finish in four years with some taking twice that long or longer because they have to work.
Either this guy started late, or he is a loser.
Or maybe he is retraining himself after being laid-off. Lots of reasons to go back to school at that age.
Better than sitting on his duff with his hand out asking for Uncle Sam to take care of him.
ditto and same for my sister and mother
All the idiots yakking on cell phones at sporting events during dramatic moments are Kerry voters.
How about the ones who hand cell phones to performers at concerts?
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