Cell Division

We were winding down after a weekend of staffing the campaign booth at our local Goombay! festival when an old friend interrupted his bike ride to chat on the front walk. Barry opined that the presidential election would be a victory (for Obama) of monumental proportions. What puzzles him is how the polling shows the race so close when the atmospherics make it feel like a landslide in the making. We wondered whether the growth in use of cell phones is skewing the polling.

Back inside at the computer, Google turned up this from Pew (June 2007):

While the cell-only problem is currently not biasing polls based on the entire population, it may very well be damaging estimates for certain subgroups in which the use of only a cell phone is more common. This concern is particularly relevant for young adults. According to the most recent government estimate, more than 25% of those under age 30 use only a cell phone.

Pew updated their cell phone post last month:

The more serious challenge to survey research posed by cell phones is the declining absolute numbers of certain types of respondents, most notably the young. In recent Pew Research Center surveys, only about 10% of respondents in landline samples are under age 30, which is roughly half of what it should be according to the U.S. Census. Young voters reached on landlines share many of the characteristics of the cell-only group, especially in terms of political views. That is why statistical weighting of the landline samples helps to correct for the absence of the cell-only. But the shortfall of young respondents in absolute numbers means that pollsters are limited in their ability to analyze differences within this age group.

It appears that Pew is having trouble counting those kids with their cell phones, maybe more than 25% of those under age 30. They are trying to extrapolate from what they do know by weighting their results. In school, we called that by the more colloquial “fudge factor.”

Perhaps this is why Barry’s instincts for the election outcome is at odds with the fudged counting of under-30 voters: he used to run a local FM rock station. Used to, because the family-owned station lost its license in an auction (three years after going on air with a construction permit) after Sen. John McCain introduced a rider to the Balanced Budget Act of 1997 that required new licenses to be auctioned off. The family had been in radio since 1947, but lost its small business to media deregulation and consolidation because, in the end, they weren't wealthy enough to hire a lobbyist.

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