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Politics : Stockman Scott's Political Debate Porch -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: tejek who wrote (61929)	10/21/2004 10:11:42 AM
From: stockman_scott	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 89467

Wireless world stymies polls _______________________________ By James Sterngold San Francisco Chronicle Thursday, October 21, 2004 The surging number of people who are “cutting the cord,” abandoning wired telephone lines for cellular phones, is suddenly presenting political pollsters with a vexing problem — the prospect that their surveys may be undercounting younger voters in this election who have decamped for a wireless lifestyle. The American Association for Public Opinion Research, a trade group representing professional pollsters, is so concerned that it has run seminars on the subject this year. The federal government, one of the most voracious users of polling data, has conducted in-depth research to learn more about the growing number of cell phone-only people, who are excluded from traditional polls. “It’s a new wrinkle to us, and we don’t know how it’ll play out,” said Cliff Zukin, a polling expert at Rutgers University and the president-elect of the public opinion research group. “It’s worrisome.” Polling has been refined over the years into a tightly disciplined science — with plenty of touches of art — of calling randomly selected, wired phone lines and then tabulating and adjusting the responses using sophisticated computer models in an effort to construct the opinions of the broader population. Capturing the preferences of younger voters has always been a problem, pollsters say, because they are frequently on the go, but the rapid increase in the numbers of people who rely solely on their cell phones has accentuated the concerns. Because of federal restrictions and practical hurdles, such as the lack of large-scale directories, pollsters do not call cell phones. “Cell phones are a problem,” said independent pollster John Zogby. “It could become a crisis. If you have a greater proliferation of cell phones, you could find you’re missing lots of people, and we will have to figure out how to get to them.” Some polls suggest that under-30 voters appear to prefer Kerry over Bush by a small margin, so missing cell-phone-only young voters might, polling experts say, slightly undercount Kerry’s support. According to the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics, about 6 percent of Americans rely solely on their cell phones, a group that is heavily young and urban. But a study earlier this year by In-Stat/MDR, a market research company, projected that the figure is likely to reach nearly 30 percent by the next presidential election.