likely voters vs. registered voters?

[soggy]

i have 2 questions, maybe someone can help me understand...

i've noticed in most polls kerry seems to do better in rv polls than lv polls. from my understanding, lv'ers are based either mainly or wholly on whether they voted in 2000. is this the only thing that determines a likely voter?

in wondering about the discrepancy between lv polls and rv polls, i saw where ACT (america coming together- a liberal 527) had registered something like 55,000 voters in ohio alone. do they just canvas a state and register whoever they can, or do they focus on just registering people in very liberal counties and areas? if it's the latter, kerry could be in much much better shape than polls would suggest, especially lv polls.

[ElsewheresDaughter]

1. i registered 15 "likely voters" for Kerry in my small one horse repuktown

and 5 others in my daughters :bounce:

[soggy]

3. cool, keep it up!

i live in mordor (my affectionate term for TX) but work for an airline, so i've been planning to spend a weekend in FL registering people in dade or broward counties. that's one reason i'm curious if ACT registers everyone or if they concentrate their registration in liberal areas.

[Feanorcurufinwe]

2. Anyone who has never voted before is automatically excluded

from 'likely voter' polls.

So yeah, they are 'unlikely' to be accurate.

[claudiajean]

4. "Likely" designation for polling is based upon voting frequency record

The designation "likely voters" for polling is based upon a registered voter's past voting frequency.

From poll to poll, the threshold of voting frequency that meets the "likely" mark may vary, depending upon how the pollster is designing the poll and what level of voting activity they wish to include in their sample.

Both polls and campaigns use the general designations for voters of: Perfect, 4/4 ("four of four"), 3/4, 2/4, 1/4, 0/4.

A "perfect" voter registered as soon as they were eligible (18 or 21, depending upon current age), and have never missed voting in a single election for which they were eligible. Keep in mind, most states have many other elections than the Presidential election every four years. My state has six election dates annually, thus a voter may have voted in 23 elections between each General election that includes a Presidential contest. Less than 4% of all voters are perfect voters.

A 4/4 voter has voted in every election out of the last 4 election dates, in other words, they currently behave as perfect voters, but have missed elections in the past.

A 3/4 voter has voted in three of the last four election dates, a 2/4 in two of the last four, etc, etc. A 0/4 voter is registered, but has never voted.

When a voter first registers, they are a 0/4 voter. Once they have voted in two elections, they are a 2/4 voter, regardless of the fact that there have only been two election dates since they registered. A voter must participate in at least four election dates in their jurisdiction to reach the ability to be considered a 4/4 voter.

When designing a likely voter poll, the pollster will determine what threshold they want, to do the data pull from the registered voter lists - perfects, 4/4s, 3/4s. I have never seen a likely voter poll designed based upon less than 3/4s as the initial pool.

Then, the first question of substance on the poll is: Are you very likely, likely, possibly, or unlikely to vote in the _____ election?
If the voter says anything less than "very likely", the poll is discontinued for them, and the poll technician moves on to the next voter on the list.

So, to wrap up, the "likely voter" polls are conducted with pre-screened lists of established, high-frequency voters, who also answer the question of likelihood of voting in the subject election as "very likely".

Recently registered voters are rarely used for polling, because the simple fact is, less than 50% of recently registered voters actually turn out for their first election, even a Presidential one. So registering someone new to vote is only half of the task -- getting them to the polls is the other half.

[muriel_volestrangler]

5. Thanks - a comprehensive article on the subject

so good, I think I may need to refer people to it in the future. :)