I Told You Polls Were Used For Propaganda

[4lbs]

29. I'm not "poll" material according to their own methodologies.

Even though I am probably in the age range and political activity they are looking for in their collection,

* I don't own a landline at all.
Got rid of it almost 15 years ago, when Obama was elected.
Been going all cell phones since. Hard to be included when they only call landlines. Usually people in rural areas still have landlines. Those are mostly right-wing because most people in rural areas are such. Also, people in rural areas with landlines tend to be "older" and "more conservative" by nature. So the answers they give tend to reflect that.

* I don't answer my mobile/cell phone if it says "Spam Risk" or something like that.
If it is from an area code that is outside my state, I definitely try to stay away. Also helps against potential phishing and scamming, where they even try to record your voice for some nefarious activity that requires you to 'voice authenticate' (I.E. calls where they simply ask "Can you hear me?" ).
Pollsters are frequently from out-of-state to me, in area codes I don't recognize, and thus would be 'weeded out' in my list.

* I don't have much of a social media presence anymore.
It doesn't mean I'm inactive (although to them, I might be). I just don't feel like I want to post thousands of selfies and memes all over the place. I have better things to do with my time than have my phone appear like it is attached to my fingers all day. I haven't posted on say, FaceBook, for more than a year, and rarely post on Xitter, and don't Insta, use Pinterest, nor Tumblr. I also set it so that only my 'friends' can post on my feed. I've met nearly all of them in real life, and know they exist, and are not bots. Also, nearly all of them have similar political leanings as me, so there is rarely a disagreement. I don't need 1000 'friends', 95% of whom I've never met. I only need 100 quality people that I KNOW and have talked to personally. That is more important to me.

* I tend not to reply to texts, especially those asking for money or to donate.
Repeatedly too. Just ask once, and if I don't respond, assume I don't care to or can't afford it.


Thus, I will likely never be in the "1000 likely voters polled" category, even though I am a 'likely voter' (have voted in EVERY election since 1988, including the midterms, and years where only local/state issues and propositions have been on the ballot).

I suspect there are millions more like me, much more than the people they "poll". They should either change their methodology to make it more possible to include me, or I can just ignore them and their "results" like I have done so for years.

If they want to increase the validity of their results, they have to poll much more than say, 1000 people, living in some area that no one really cares about.
Grab 20,000 city people. You are much more likely to get valid results from that.