Question: How does the media figure it's phone polling?

[gatorboy]

Take the Newsweek poll for example. Do they call individuals at random or do people sign up to be called in future polling?
If they call at random, do they just grab a phone book and start calling or do thay have a fixed list of individuals and if so, where do they get this list?
Does anyone know? I honestly have no idea. Thanks!

[Dookus]

1. I did polling and surveying in college...

If the firm is any good, it's randomized, and that does NOT mean going through a phone book. That is not random.

We would get a list of valid exchanges for the area in which we were polling, then had a computer generate a list of random 4-digit numbers to append to the exchanges and we'd start dialing.

Many of the numbers, of course, were invalid. We'd move on to the next one.

This assures that people with unlisted numbers are included, too. Of course, the unlisted people often got highly offended that we called them asking "How did you get my number?!", and we'd have to explain that we didn't "GET" their number - we "guessed" it.

[cheshire]

2. It looks like they pick out known areas where they will prevail.

[NewHampshireDem]

3. I used to work for a polling service ...

Political polls are done with phone number lists supplied by the phone company. The lists we had actually contained both "listed" and "unlisted" numbers. The numbers are kicked up onto the list randomly--but randomly in the sense that if you are called once you will not be called again.

The issue I have with the accuracy of these phone polls is that they do not include people who don't have a land line. If, like myself, a person uses only a cell phone then they will never be surveyed. My guess is that excludes a large number of young, left-leaning voters, who are more tech-savy than the general population.

Sorry to get off topic there. :)

[gatorboy]

4. NO need to apologize! That is an Excellent Point that should me mentioned!

EOM