Cell Phone Polling 

I was reading a story on Fox News today asking whether the lack of cell phone users in polls is skewing the results:

Pollsters generally do not contact cell phone users because of prohibitive Federal Communications Commission restrictions, and some political experts believe they are skewing poll results - possibly by as much as 1 or 2 percent.

"The government and the FCC are going to have to let pollsters get through to cell phone users," said Democratic strategist Bob Beckel. "When tens of thousands of people every month are opting out of land lines, you can't leave that segment out of polling and expect to have anything accurate."

So what are the issues here?

Issue #1: Is this a valid concern? Statistically I would say absolutely not. Certainly the group of people use a cell phone exclusively (in other words don't maintain a land line) are generally younger (age 18 - 35 according to the article), but as long as you can find people in that same demographic group who don't use cell phones, it doesn't matter as far as the final results are concerned.

Issue #2: Receiving a call from anyone on a cell phone costs money. Why should I have to pay to be polled? Of course the people who are upset that they can't call say that they'll pay. But exactly how are you going to arrange that with all the different possible cell phone companies? I'm sure that the FCC could make a rule for certain groups that will allow that cost to be incurred by them. Of course in order to facilitate that, my cell phone bill will have increase to offset the cost of this new government regulated program. Eric Gunnerson has a good post on all the current phone company fees... do you want one more?

Issue #3: You're driving in your car when all of a sudden your phone rings. You're sitting in a meeting when your phone rings. Do you want to pick it up, thinking it might be an emergency, only to find out that it's a pollster? I sure as hell don't. What's worse, Caller ID isn't the solution. Most cell phones only show a name on the Caller ID window if you have that person programmed in your phone book. So how are we supposed to know that they're pollsters before picking up?

Issue #4: Why is it that the pollsters think they have the right to bug me? In the above story snippet, the Democratic strategist says "The government and the FCC are going to have to let pollsters get through to cell phone users..." They're going to have to let them? Why? Why do you think that you have a right to call my home phone? I don't know you. That's why I signed up for the Wisconsin and Federal no call lists. What pisses me off is that non-profit groups and political entities are exempt from those rules. It doesn't bother me that sales people are calling me without my permission trying to sell crap. It bothers me that anyone I don't know just thinks they can call me whenever (non-profit or not). Not only that, they use automatic dialers that don't connect half the people they dial (ever answered the phone and had nobody on the other end?) Or you end up with a pre-recorded message. How rude!

Issue #5: This only hit me after I had been thinking about it for a while. Many people complain that politicians flip flop with the polls, that they'll say anything to be elected. But how important are polls in the decision making process of already elected officials? Do they use these polls when deciding how to vote on a bill? Is polling a form of representation? If we're not answering the phone for a poll, are we missing out on an important part of participating in our democracy? If elected officials are honestly using these numbers, is the current ad hoc polling system adequate to the task? My personal off the cuff opinion is that it is not. Current polling is definitely not accurate enough for this task, and is not being conducted in a manner that conveys that importance.

Am I missing anything?