Pew: Phone polling in crisis again (02/27/2019)

[Klaralven]

The percentage of Americans willing to participate in telephone polls has hit a new low, according to a new report, raising doubts about the continued viability of the phone surveys that have traditionally dominated politics and elections, both in the media and in campaigns.

The Pew Research Center reported Wednesday that the response rate for its phone polls last year fell to just 6 percent — meaning pollsters could only complete interviews with 6 percent of the households in their samples. It continues the long-term decline in response rates, which had leveled off earlier this decade.

In releasing the data, Pew is also announcing that it will move “the lion’s share” of its tracking of political and social trends — considered by many to be the gold-standard in public-opinion research — to its online platform, part of a broader trend away from phone polling and toward the internet.

“We felt like we were sort of at this transition point,” Courtney Kennedy, the director of survey research at Pew, said in a phone interview.

The response rate for telephone polls has cratered over the past three decades. In 1997, the response rate stood at 36 percent, meaning interviews could be conducted with more than a third of households in a sample.

https://www.politico.com/story/2019/02/27/phone-polling-crisis-1191637

With a 6% response rate, a pollster would need to make 10,000 calls to get the opinions of just 600 voters.

They are probably not getting the opinions of the less sociable part of the population.

[Peregrine Took]

1. I used to enjoy getting poliitcal calls....conversing with fellow Dems

and hanging up on rethugs.

The onslaught of robo scam calls has just turned people off answering the phone altogether when the number is unknown.

[DeminPennswoods]

5. Robocalls are a big problem

I usually pick up the phone, but hang right up if I don't recognize the number although my phone does sometimes accompany the number with "Spam?". The calls are especially numerous during medicare enrollment open season which overlaps the run up to Nov elections.

[hlthe2b]

2. Yet they ignore the reason-- the essential dismantling/failure to enforce no-call list

has allowed spammers and scammers to overwhelm the average cell phone customer. Their only solution is to not answer any numbers they don't recognize or who do not leave a message.

Had the FCC done its job as was originally intended, surveys/pollsters could still get through but the malicious spam calls would have some deterrence and repercussions (blocked or class action lawsuits as was happening a decade ago).

THAT is why phone polls are now nearly totally unreliable. Even those normally willing to respond are not getting the requests because they are screening calls.

[DarthDem]

4. Well said.

Phone polling may still be okay at the national level, but at the state level it has some serious, serious problems.

[Wicked Blue]

3. I confess that I disconnect any call from a number I don't recognize

I think that, like me, many people are fed up with the endless robocalls, spoofing calls, spam calls, scam calls and other garbage that invades our phones, sometimes several times an hour. We have caller ID on our landline, and it comes in handy.

[shrike3]

6. We don't answer phone calls in this house because too many are sales calls.

If we don't recognize the number, we let it go to voice mail. If there's a voice that sounds human, we pick it up.