Whostheboss.net

Well, I can't claim to remember many presidential primary seasons--this is really only the third one I've followed with any interest--but if the media is to be trusted, both parties are running closer contests than they have in a long time.  I'll refrain from commenting about any of the individual candidates here on the blog, but there was one thing that really stood out for me, which was the inaccuracy of the polls in both states.  The pollsters had conducted near-daily polls in the states, but were not close to the actual results.

Why?  Well, I think that polls are getting increasingly inaccurate because of the way they are taken--typically over landline telephones.  Let's face it, the days of the average person both having a landline telephone and not being on the "Do Not Call" list are lower everyday.  It is also something that is going to skew polls increasingly towards an older and less technology-savvy demographic.  For a great example of this, most of my friends are planning on voting, are well-educated, well-read, and extremely interested in this year's primary season.  Not a single one of us pays Qwest, SBC, or Verizon for a landline--we all use cell phones.  There's no exception to this rule.  I do not know a single person under the age of 30 that has a true landline for personal use.

With that thinking, it's not all that surprisingly that the polls have become increasingly unreliable, because they are polling an increasingly smaller percentage of the general electorate.  Add that to the fact that there is no clear front-runner in either the Republican or Democratic races and it's not surprising that they polls are often wrong.

Balancing the phone polls with online polls might help balance these polls out again and increase their accuracy.  Although none of my friends are using 1950s-style telephones anymore, we certainly are using Gmail and Facebook.  Facebook not only has the infrastructure to run detailed polls, but they also have incredibly accurate demographic information.  By finding out that Senator Obama is more popular than Senator Clinton in Facebook polls 4 to 1 (I'm making this figure up for argument's sake) you could find out that the 18-30 demographic is going to vote heavily for Obama.  Using the historical data about what percentage of those voters should up for primaries (my demographic doesn't vote in huge numbers), you could help balance out the polling information conducted in person and on landline telephones (both demographics that hit more solidly with the 35+ demographic.)

Of course, maybe they don't need correcting.  They did correctly predict that Hillary Clinton would win Michigan last night.  Unfortunately for them, Mrs. Clinton ran against "Uncommitted" and Dennis Kucinich, so I'm not sure that's a tough call...