1 1 <p>Do pollsters under-represent younger voters by excluding from their samples voters who use cell phones exclusively? <a href="http://pewresearch.org/pubs/964/">Pew Research</a> seems to think so: After including cell phone-only households in three recent polls, the organization notes "a virtually identical pattern is seen across all three surveys: In each case, including cell phone interviews resulted in slightly more support for Obama and slightly less for McCain, a consistent difference of two-to-three points in the margin." <em>PollTrack </em>wonders: why then did many public opinion surveys during the Democratic primary season routinely <em>OVER </em>estimate Obama's actual support? And to what extent are pollsters' attempts to weight their samples to correct this deficit solving or adding to the problem? Another question: how do we evaluate Pew's reported discrepancy if the election is not until November and there are no hard results against which to gauge their polling estimates?</p> 2008-09-24T15:48:32-04:00 128 true 2008-09-25T09:21:19-04:00 2008-09-30T01:27:20-04:00