Polls off base
Posted on Thursday, August 21, 2008
URL: http://www.nwanews.com/nwat/Editorial/68325/
There is less reason this election year to trust political polls. The reason for skepticism: More and more Americans are using cell phones exclusively, either abandoning or never beginning the use of traditional landline telephones, and as a result are unlikely to be included in most public opinion polls. As a result of the spreading, ubiquitous cell-phone usage, the percentage of younger potential voters included in polling statistics has declined steadily and promises to keep dipping as more and more people go wireless. But cell-only users are different from their landline counterparts. They tend to be younger, less affluent, less likely to be married or own a home and more liberal on political issues, according to Pew’s researchers. Pollsters claim, so far, that not counting the cell-phone users has only minimal impact on most surveys because young people tend not to register or vote and that their impact is only slight or modest because their preference mirrors that of their age group still tied to landline phones. No successful business making an important decision would allow itself to be unduly influenced by a survey that excluded such a large and growing percentage of a vital target group of people. Neither should voters.
— The News-Enterprise, Elizabethtown, Ky.