[lbo-talk] cell phones & polling

Nathan Newman nathanne at nathannewman.org
Wed Sep 15 11:05:42 PDT 2004


----- Original Message ----- From: "Doug Henwood" <dhenwood at panix.com> -An AAPORite reports that 7% of the U.S. pop has only cell phones, -which are unreachable by pollsters (unsolicited calls to a cell phone -are illegal, since they can cost money). They're disproportionally -young. So this may introduce a systematic error to polls - and it's -thought that this is also a Dem-leaning population.

Which could be even more significant since polling formulas are probably assuming the same old low turnout among youth, but reports seem to indicate an unusual upswell of interest in this election and registration of younger voters: http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/15/politics/campaign/15youth.html

"After dismal turnout by young voters in 2000, surveys this year show that interest in the election among the young is near the highest level it has reached at any time since 18- to 20-year-olds were given the vote in 1972. And state election officials say registration of new young voters is coming in at levels they have not seen in years...

In Wisconsin, for example, where the 2000 election was decided by 5,708 votes, more than 74,000 new voters, most of them young, have been added to the rolls by the New Voters Project, a nonpartisan group that is spending nearly $10 million to register new voters in six relatively small states where the outcome was tight in the last election. The project is financed primarily by the Pew Charitable Trusts. The clipboard legions are taking down cellphone numbers and e-mail addresses for a huge follow-through..."

-- Nathan



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