The New York Times had a great story today about how cell phones are making accurate polling more difficult. This is relevant because we read polls every few days about the presidential election thats still more than a year away. The fact that so many people, especially young people, only have cell phones these days, means that results will be very unrepresentative. There's already all the debate about whether treating elections like a horse race (and it's Hillary by a nose), effects results, now we wonder, are the results already skewed by the technology?
The story starts by explaining how pollsters gather results and telling how prolific cell phones have become. This backed-up by a ton of stats from places like the FCC and pew center etc. It is not until more than halfway down the page that a living human talks to us, sums it all up, although he talks through email.
The article ends with quotes saying pollsters are going to meet this challenge. But, they don't describe the HOW of it. I want to know. Are they gonna figure something out with phone companies (and what do those people think)?
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