Pollsters Struggle to Get the Right (Cell) Number.

[elleng]

As they gauge voter sentiment in this tight presidential race, pollsters face a big challenge: more and more voters hang up on them.

So it sounds odd that some pollsters have decided to hang up on more voters.

Yet that is one way survey researchers have adapted to the communications revolution that has upended old methods of measuring which political party is ahead. In the polarized battle between President Obama and Mitt Romney, arcane shifts in polling techniques can have important consequences for the results — and public perceptions of the contest.

Bill McInturff, a Republican pollster, and Peter Hart, his Democratic counterpart, who conduct the NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll, proved the point in their latest poll, conducted July 18-22, when they increased the proportion of respondents who rely exclusively on cellphones to 30 percent from 25 percent. To home in on them, the pollsters ended calls answered on cellphones if the respondents said they also had landlines.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/06/us/politics/political-pollsters-struggle-to-get-the-right-cell-number.html?hp

[bluestateguy]

1. Or we could just not have polls

Maybe people are trying to tell them something.

[liberal N proud]

2. My cell is pre-paid, I will not waste minute answering questions by pollsters.