Posted on 09/26/2008 3:41:54 AM PDT by Zakeet
With only six weeks left before Election Day, it's open season for polling. Eager pollsters are dialing away, trying to get people on the line who will tell them which candidate they are likely to vote for. But what about the people who don't answer their phones? Or those who say "no thanks"--or worse--and hang up? Is there a certain type of person likely to refuse the probing calls? And does that affect polling numbers?
In a January op-ed in The New York Times, Andrew Kohut, president of the Pew Research Center, warned that the disparity between polls and the outcome in the New Hampshire Democratic primary--Clinton beat Obama despite polls showing him with an advantageous margin--could have been due, in part, to the fact that less affluent whites are more likely to hang up on pollsters. "These whites who do not respond to surveys tend to have more unfavorable views of blacks than respondents who do the interviews," Kohut wrote.
So with the media now reviving questions about how race affects voters' decision-making, should we be worried that polling numbers under-represent racists (or anyone else, for that matter)? Several pollsters I spoke to this week said there isn't a notable disparity between the types of people who answer questions and those who do not. John Zogby, president and CEO of Zogby International, told me that over the past few decades, there has been a "democratization of refusals" and that there is a 95-percent confidence rate in polls' accuracy. ... Charles Franklin, co-founder of Pollster.com, said there isn't a notable partisan divide between people who agree to polls and those who refuse. "If every Republican hung up and every Democrat did an interview, the profession would be in a crisis," he said.
(Excerpt) Read more at blogs.tnr.com ...
I don’t answer polls. I refuse to play their game.
there a certain type of person likely to refuse the probing calls?
Yeah. They are called people that have real lives....
What about people who have no land lines and only cell phones?
Sheesh!!Doncha know!!If you don't vote for the One ...its because you're racist...and if you're racist....its because you're a conservative..../s
I am howling with laughter. Ummm.... Beyond even the growing number of Indies, how do they know what "type of people" someone is who won't even talk to them.
I know they have registration lists, but how do they know a D is a radical socialist D or an intelligent Reagan Democrat. How do they know if an R is a drooling Snow/Collins R or a real Republican.
Fortunately they can read minds with the click of a hang up as the only clue.
The dirty little secret is that w/caller ID, these polls are nearly worthless. The miscalls in the primaries should tell you all you need to know.
Pray for W, McCuda and Our Troops
That is exactly what I do. A quote from the article “To adapt, survey organizations have expanded the number of people they call per survey, and they often call numbers with no answers or hang-ups as many as a dozen times to try to get responses.”
This is especially irritating. My number is on the do-not-call list. I know polling firms are exempt from do-not-call laws but the reason why I don’t want to be call is that I don’t want to be disturbed by anyone, regardless if they are a telemarketer or pollster.
I find that the most enjoyable means of terminating a call from a polling organization is to agree to answer the poll. Then, answer the first and every succeeding query with “I wouldn’t vote for that socialist SOB with a gun to my head.”. This usually results in confused statements and advice on how to answer the yes/no, rate 1-5, etc. Questions. If you ignore their attempts to get you back into their groove and simply repeat the mantra, they hang up and move on.
LOL...reminds me of a commercial for a TV show years ago...(Scene) Dark screen, phone ringing. Answering Machine Message plays: "Pyschic Detective Agency...we know who you are, we know what you want...hang up we'll call you back."
I too am on the Do Not Call List and even when I can see it's a Pollster I refuse to answer...main reason; I choose not to waste my (unpaid) time and disrupt my real life.
I would do the same just for fun
( Yes I know I am a sick bastard )
My wife takes those "couples" magazine quizzes and fills my answers in for me.
We all know the term sheeple. Polls can lead sheeple into the pollsters way of thinking and get the desired results. Polls are not taken to get a feel for how people are feeling, they are taken to direct an outcome and that's the outcome the commissioning organization wants.
That's my story and I'm sticken to it.
The only political call I have answered was when the caller ID said FRED THOMPSON!
My mind locked and I grabbed the phone. Turned out to be one of those prerecorded messages and I hung up.
Same here. I made the mistake of answering a pollster during the 2004 elections. I thought I'd NEVER get finished with that call. We get the "Political Caller" on the ID every evening. I refuse to answer.
I have an extension in the garage and answered it several times before I got one of those cheap caller IDs. I'd hang up on pollsters so fast. I even had one call back, and ask WHY didn't answer his questions. Before he got much more out of his mouth, I hung up on him the second time.
I had one person call me and I hung up on a female. A male called back and started giving me grief. I found their office number and called their supervisors. I haven’t got a call from them again.
Wouldn’t you think that all the OBMAMANIACS would be very eager to talk to a pollster?
My guess is that because of all the negative talk about McCain in the MSM, his voters are much less eager to talk to a survey.
There may be a substantial under recording of McCain voters in these polls.
bmflr
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