Omitting cell phone users may affect polls

[RiverStone]

Source: MSNBC

WASHINGTON - People with only cell phones may differ enough from those with landline telephones that excluding the growing population of cell-only users from public opinion polls may slightly skew the results, a study has concluded.

The finding, in a report this week by the nonpartisan Pew Research Center, may increase pressure on polling organizations to include people who use only cell phones in their surveys. While many major polls including The Associated Press-GfK Poll already interview cell phone users, some do not, largely because doing so is more expensive.

Earlier studies — including a joint Pew-AP report two years ago — concluded that cell and landline users had similar enough views that not calling cell users had no major impact on poll findings. The new report concludes that "this assumption is increasingly questionable," especially for young people, who use cells heavily.

Combining polls it conducted in August and September, Pew found that of people under age 30 with only cell phones, 62 percent were Democrats and 28 percent Republicans. Among landline users the same age that gap was narrower: 54 percent Democrats, 36 percent GOP.

Similarly, young cell users preferred Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama over Republican nominee John McCain by 35 percentage points. For young landline users, it was a smaller 13-point Obama edge.



Read more: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26889731/

---

This bodes well for Dems and the GE in particular. :) Many people have said on DU already that leaving out this large and growing voter group skews the polls in the wrong direction.

[supernova]

1. This week's "D'uh!" Award

Most people who are reachable by landline only anymore tend to be older and more conservative.

[DesertFlower]

6. well i'm 67. i have

a landline and a cell phone and i'm extremely liberal.

[heliarc]

9. There are a lot of 30 somethings in LA...

that I know... who ONLY have a cell phone...

And I'm sure my 22 year old brother in Florida only has a cell phone... and he votes...

[DesertFlower]

12. my nieces are 25 and 27.

my sister is 54. all 3 use only cell phones and they vote.

[supernova]

10. I'm not saying all are

I am saying the subset of people who only have landlines anymore tend to be older and more conservative. They are the only ones around to answer the phone for strangers anymore.

I wonder what's the overlap with people who won't be ready for the switch to digital TV in February too? :think:

[DesertFlower]

14. i have caller ID. i don't

answer the phone for strangers. i also have an answering machine. if it's important they can leave a message.

the digital TV -- i think the TV has to be really old to not be ready. i can't imagine sitting there with "rabbit ears" on top of the tv.

[supernova]

15. I have caller ID as well

and I only answer it if I know the person.

The only reason I still have my landline is DSL and my Tivo uses it. Other than that, I'd give it up and go cell only too. Perhaps I will in the coming two years.

[Xithras]

22. Really only true in denser urban areas.

Those of us living in suburbia get to deal with wider cell tower distribution, and as a consequence spottier cell phone signals. I probably mutter the phrase "Hang on a sec, let me call you back on a landline" at least once a week. I don't know ANYBODY outside of the SF Bay Area who is cell-only at this point.

[dothemath]

23. Contrarian ..................

There I go again. I am 72 and have only a cell phone.
Well, I do have a VOIP account which I use to make
international calls. Sorry, ATandT.

[Muttocracy]

2. I bet a few years ago it was mostly businessmen and techies who had cell phones

now it's the vast majority of young adults and a lot of poorer people - when I moved I switched to cell phone because the installation fee on a land line was outrageous and the monthly cost was the same.

[snooper2]

3. I'd like to read the whole study,

I know of at least 4 folks between 35-45 who only have cell phone service and own homes and two are married and all are for Obama...

like my run-on sentence :)

[Gormy Cuss]

26. Here you go

http://pewresearch.org/pubs/964/cell-phones-and-the-2008-vote-an-update

What's interesting is that the effect of adding cell phone users to the survey has a consistent pattern in the three most recent PEW polls, that of adding a couple of points for Obama. Pew is polling registered voters, not likely voters, but among those who claim to also be likely to vote the difference is consistent. PEW notes that the difference is not statistically significant.

In a close race however, it will matter as long as the young registered voters actually show up to vote.

From the Pew report, bold emphasis mine:

Young voters may play a critical role on Election Day. But will cell-only young people turn out at the same rate as those with a landline phone? While 18-29-year-olds reached by cell phone tend to have less experience voting than their landline counterparts, they are just as interested in the 2008 campaign, and express just as much intention to vote this year. The clearest difference is on past voting behavior. Just 23% of cell-only young respondents say they "always vote," compared with 41% among the landline respondents. There are small - and statistically non-significant - differences in the share who voted in the 2004 election and who have previously voted in their precinct. Yet at the same time, most cell-only young people are registered to vote, have given a lot of thought to the election, and say they definitely will vote - factors that are also closely associated with turnout.

[dhpgetsit]

4. Dubya begins with DUH!

[GinaMaria]

5. Ya Think?! n/t

[GoLeft TV]

7. hmmm....

I have to wonder if the administration already knew this information. After all, aren't the allowed to listen in on our cell phone conversations now?

[HopeHoops]

8. Another factor is caller ID

I often let the phone go if the number looks like a sales call on the grounds that if it is important they will leave a message. The pollsters aren't going to leave one. A lot of older voters are accustomed to simply picking up if it rings, and some simply because of eyesight even if they have caller ID.

In contrast, I think the exit polls can be slightly biased toward the views of the younger voters as many older voters brush off exit poll workers.

If we could trust that our votes were legitimately counted, I would dismiss all pre-election polls as good guesses at best. Unfortunately, the machines are not to be trusted and the pre-election and exit polls are really our only benchmark to judge the fairness of the election. They can only steal so many votes before the results shift significantly out of line with poll-based predictions.

Not that they won't try...

Edited to add this:

Long ago I heard about a visit a young man took to the house of an elderly relative who had recently gotten a telephone, at a time when they were not particularly common in that town. While he was there, the phone rang and the elderly man paid no attention, as if it was silent. After several rings, he inquired if the man was going to answer it. The old man's reply was, "The phone is there for my convenience, not theirs."

I think of that often when I decide not to answer a call from an unknown number.

[Dem2theMax]

11. "The phone is there for my convenience, not theirs."

That's my motto! LOL. Every job I've had, I've been tied to the phone. When I get home, the LAST thing I want to do is talk on the phone. It amazes me that I seem to be the only one I know who can ignore a ringing phone. There is no law that says I have to answer it. ;)

[GinaMaria]

16. I'm with you.

Ignore all toll free calls! Let them leave a message.

[Citizen_Penn]

13. Of course, this is statement of the obvious

anyone in touch with the real world knows that most of us rely on cellular more than landline these days. i have both, but rarely, if ever, answer the home phone - why should I - it's normally telemarketers who call that number. anyone who knows me, knows to call the cell.
I suspect I'm like many people - and I'm over 50 years old.


And listening to the polls is likely inviting crazy. When people told me two years ago not to back Obama because he didn't have a chance - I decided to vote and support the candidate who spoke to me - to paraphrase Michelle Obama - to choose hope over fear.

So, I forgot about polls. Instead, I became a deputy registrar - and register voters. I studied the other side's lies, and learned to thoroughly and politely debunk them. And I use my voice. I'm the party precinct chair, an election judge, I'm in.

I am practicing Democracy - and leave the bean counting to others. Win or lose, I'll know I did all I could to be the change I want to see in my country.

[RiverStone]

20. good post!

Thanks for your efforts Citizen_Penn, good thing you followed your own voice - as more and more Americans do the same thing, we just might end up with Obama as President!

Hard to imagine anyone really paying attention thinking any other way! :)

[crossroads]

28. Well said! nt

[izquierdista]

17. 1948

Part of the reason that the Chicago Tribune wrote the 'Dewey Defeats Truman' headline was on the basis of telephone polling. In 1948, ALL the rich Republican households had telephones, but there were many poor Democrats who didn't, hence the big OOPS.

Polling is just applied statistical sampling, but without pollsters making a check on how representative the sample is of the whole population, it can all be for naught. A 35-point lead in an unpolled demographic would cause any statistician to throw all the data in the garbage -- from which it will be retrieved by a biased news organization.

[HopeHoops]

25. Also known as "FOX"

[TransitJohn]

18. I'm 36

and haven't had a landline in almost 6 years. I have a stand alone dsl line, no phone service.

[Xithras]

19. True, but tele-polling cellphone users is illegal.

One of the many reasons people cite for abandoning land lines for a cell phone is the fact that they're off limits to telemarketers, polling companies, and anyone else who doesn't have personal business with the line owner. The only way for polling companies to get around this would be for them to get prior approval from the phone owners, which creates skewing issues all of its own.

[Gormy Cuss]

29. It's not illegal for pollsters to call cell lines.

It's illegal to call cellphones using automatic dialers. Survey firms can call cell numbers as long as the dialing is done manually -- that adds costs. Because many cell phone users still have time limited plans, most survey firms also offer an incentive to cell phone users as an offset for the cost.

A bigger issue for pollsters and survey researchers is that the selection methodology must also be modified, thus making it harder to use historical data for comparison.

Understanding how to address the transition to a cellphone culture has been going on for years in the survey research community. It's their business to pay attention to such shifts and adapt. No one wants to be responsible for a new "Dewey beats Truman" error.

[Dora]

21. Not just cell phones, digital lines too.

We recently moved to an address and learned that DSL was not available to us, and the only high-speed internet we could get was through the cable company. We don't watch television (and don't own one), so a cable/internet bundle held no value to us. But paying for a land line with the phone company, plus paying for cable just to have internet access was too expensive. So, we dropped the "analog" land line (buh-bye) so that we could bundle a digital telephone line with our internet service. It's worked out so far, but it means that our phone number isn't listed in any public directory. I'm sure we're not the only people who have digital phone service.

[hunter]

24. Most young people are impossible to call from an unknown number.

They simply don't answer or return the call.

My kids will utterly ignore our landline ringing. They wait for the machine to pick up and if they don't hear mom or dad yelling "Pick up the phone! Pick up the phone!" it doesn't even register on their consciousness.

I'm certain telephone polling has become useless for anything but push polls.

[xxqqqzme]

27. 60 yrs old, here

w/ no land line.

[Spike89]

30. Hope it's true, but I wonder...

Why were the primary polls immune from this? Sure, the polls were wrong a lot, but not consistently undercounting Obama's support in a way that would prove the cell phone theory. It could be that age splits are more dramatic in the GE, but it was my impression that Hilary's strength was in the older demographics. I really think we're going to win this one going away, but I don't think we'll see much divergence from the polls--or perhaps there are counterbalancing factors?