[the_devils_advocate_666]

I think they are trying to say that the cell phone only types are all a bunch of democrat college students who are going to be voting for Kerry... but I could be wrong.

[The Old Hoosier]

This cell-only user is voting for Bush.

[Trampled by Lambs]

I will not be voting for Mr. sKerry and neither will my cell phone.

[Dyvim]

I agree, but the question is: will they vote? I read somewhere (can't find it now) about how Gallup and the like think about cell phone only people, and I think they had some figures that made them statistically insignificant to the sample, but I could be wrong.

[Guillermo]

The 28-year-old Marshall senior

Either this guy started late, or he is a loser.

[Happygal]

Spencer didn't know pollsters couldn't call him. Neither did Corey Strimer, a graduate student at WVU.

''Woah dude, someone's sayin' there's an election? Woah Who knew?!'

[KJacob]

Look even if these cell phone users instead had a regular phone and sat at home every night, it is doubtful that they would ever be called by a pollster. Pollsters take the information from those they talk to and try to project it to the entire population. So now cell phone users are part of the projection rather than the sample. I do not see how this effects the results a great deal.

[xm177e2]

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.

If it's not scientific, why relate the results? If news organizations stopped reporting the results of unscientific polls, the world would be a better place.

[RockinRight]

I have a cell only-no land line. I am of course voting for Bush and a GOP ticket the whole way down.

[NeoCaveman]

I'm cell phone only and voting for Bush.

[BJtheJob]

I use only a cell phone and had a poller call me on October 1st. I believe they said they were with ATT (I use Sprint) so I'm not sure how they got my number. Anyway, I told them I'm voting for Bush.

[Sal]

...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.

Not only were they self-selected, they were self-selected from Rock the Vote watchers. I would have expected a lot less than 29% Bush votes from that crew.

[Labyrinthos]

This is a non-issue from a statistical standpoint.

[LouD]

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.

[mabelkitty]

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.

[only1percent]

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.

[metesky]

So what? I've had a land line in my name for almost forty years and no pollster has ever called me either.

[Old Professer]

Hobson Corrals Gallup?; Zogby's Last Ride?; Mason Dixon Hits Roadblock?

[Barlowmaker]

All the idiots yakking on cell phones at sporting events during dramatic moments are Kerry voters.

[Nataku X]

Uh no, college students were NEVER "counted" because pollsters can't call dorm phones as far as I know. And the ones that live off-campus, in my experience, tend to be more Republican anyway.

But, I don't know many young cell-users... young people talk a lot, and cells cost a lot. On the other hand, my parents and grandma and I all are cell-only... and we're all Bush-only. It seems to me that travelling businessmen types are far more likely to be cell-only, anyway.

[RightWhale]

1,200 Marshall University students

The clue is that cellphone users are a young group. They are somewhat Liberal, but they also somewhat don't vote. They don't even keep up with the news and didn't watch the debates. Their world consists of their quickdial list.