Do they poll people without land lines?

[mindfulNJ]

My 23 year old son says that NONE of his friends (all Obama supporters) have land lines. Are the pollers missing a whole subset of Obama voters?

Just askin. :shrug:

[Midlodemocrat]

1. No. That's been my argument for a while.

Think about it, unless you had the number 'out there', how would they get it?

[BlooInBloo]

17. It's been everyone's argument for years.

[MadBadger]

2. No, they weight their results to reflect the lack of land line phones by many

Heard that from CNN a week or two ago.

[BklynChick]

3. I don't think they do. No one I know under 30 has a landline. I'm in my mid-40s; I have a landline

and never answer it. never. I think most people who are successfully polled have got to bed over 45.

[mindfulNJ]

4. Ha! I thought I was the only one

who did that. If that phone rings I KNOW it's no one i want to talk to.:)

[tandot]

I've always wondered about that. Lots of people don't even

have a land line anymore.

[shaniqua6392]

5. Just as long as those young people with cellphones

get out there and vote for Obama!! My kids do not have land lines either.

[Sensitivity]

6. NO. But they STATISTICALLY weight the youth demographic to provide accurate representation

[mindfulNJ]

8. I wonder how accurate that can be

I guess we'll know in a couple of months.

[depakid]

16. Depends

weighting is very complicated statistically and is fraught with opportunities for error.

[Dawgs]

12. Then it's not an accurate poll. They can't just make shit up.

The whole point of a poll is to see what actual people are thinking.

[Midlodemocrat]

20. I don't know how accurate it can be.

This past year's high school graduating class is the largest in the history of the country. There are, literally, not enough places at a lot of the colleges for these kids to go and obtain instate tuition.

Are they using that demographic, do you think? Or, are they going on census information from 2000? If my daughter's friends are any indication, VA should go handily for Obama. :shrug:

[justiceischeap]

7. I'm almost 40 and don't have a land-line, are they weighing me in?

I don't know anyone in my circle of friends (we're all relatively the same age) who has a land line and we're all for Obama. I think they're probably missing lots of folks.

[insanity]

9. No

However, when PEW did a cell-phone survey they created a methodology for weighting the cell-phone vote.

[Writer]

No, and that is a very important feature of polls today.

Very important.

[louis-t]

10. I thought it said "land mines" at first.

Time to get off the computer for a while.

[mindfulNJ]

13. people with land mines

are McCain supporters.:evilgrin:

[vi5]

11. No, but whatever they do, it's factored in somehow...

I remember the same thing was discussed in 04 and it was said that Kerry was going to get that unpredicted last minute boost from cell phone only users. Didn't happen.

They said the same thing with regard to Obama in the primaries yet almost every contest he won, he garnered almost exactly the predicted percentage.

In other words, I wouldn't pin our hopes on this.

[succubus.blues]

14. I thought cell phone numbers

were not listed so there's no way they could poll them.

I'm another one that has a land line that never answers it and always uses my cell phone. Of course, Obama has my number. ;)

[Statistical]

15. The surveys are weighted so they will get less youth vote but the % won't change

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=6984237&mesg_id=6984751

Surveys are WEIGHTED. The exact # of youth called doesn't matter only the % split of their vote.
Surveys are weighted based on age (and other factors). It will not affect the survey 1% if too little or too many young voters are called.

Looking at Gallup data (they only give weekly for free, and smaller breakdowns cost $).

Obama vs McCain (Aug 25-31)
18-29 54%-37%
30-49 48%-45%
50-64 49%-42%
65+ 44%-43%

How does Gallup (or any pollster) make sure they get the "right" amount of Youth vote? They don't need to.

Let's say 18-22 demographic makes up 10% of voting block.

When they conduct a survey of 1000, statistically they should get on average 100 18-24 year olds (10% of 1000). Let's look at two scenarios.

A) Too little of sub population.
==================================
Say on one survey they only get 65 18-24. Those 65 people vote 48 for Obama. That works out to a 74%-26% split.

B) Too much of a sub population
=================================
On another survey they get 118 18-24. Those 118 people vote 87 for Obama. That works out to a 74%-26% split.

Now you may think well in survey A Obama will do worse. Right? Well that would be Wrong. He would have the EXACT same final result in both surveys.

Surveys are weighted it doesn't matter the individual # of votes but instead the % (which remains the same) of what each sub-pop thinks.

Surveys get baseline data on (race, gender, age, marital status, zipcode which is used for rural vs urban, religion, party ID).

Each sub pop vote is converted to a %.
The sub pops are then weighted by how much they make up the electorate.
If 18% of voters are Black and they vote 94% for Obama then that 94% get multiplied by the 18%. This is done for each race to get a statistical representation of voting based on race. Once that is done the same thing is done for each other group (age, marital, etc). The final result is the cross product of each sub-pop (properly weighted).

The idea that if they call 1000 people and get too many women, not enough young people. and too many Hispanics they just publish that is laughable.

If you wanted to do a COMPLETELY RANDOM SURVEY with no weighting or sub-pops you CAN DO IT. However the smaller the sample size the larger the error. 1000 people out of 120 million on a 50/50 issue sampled will have a margin of error of +/- 18%. The survey would have no meaning. On the other hand if you wanted to get +/-4% with completely ranom survey you would need to call OVER 46K people.

All surveys used weighted sub pops to reduce the sample size to something manageable. They have been doing that for 60 years for elections (and 300+ years for other forms of statistical analysis).

[BonnieJW]

18. And what about caller ID?

Who answers their phone when caller ID displays Unknown Caller over an 800 number? I don't.

[Speck Tater]

19. I'm 62 and do NOT have a land line.

From my point of view, I would frown on somebody calling me and using up my minutes for a long involved survey. The whole billing model is just so much different from land line billing.