Response rate shrinks for pollsters

WASHINGTON (MCT) — Pollsters taking the pulse of voters this political season are confronting growing obstacles from cell phones — and an electorate that is increasingly walling itself off with caller ID and answering machines.

The response rate in phone surveys has plunged from about 40 percent in the 1980s to 20 percent or less now, making it harder and more expensive for pollsters to secure the samples they need.

These changes are causing some to wonder about the accuracy of poll results this year, especially when it comes to young adults, who are 50 percent more likely than the rest of the population to use cell phones but who are voting in ever-greater numbers.

The emerging difficulties pose special challenges for political campaigns because they rely so heavily on polls to detect shifts in public opinion and to target voters.

Pollsters acknowledge that hurdles are becoming higher and insist they are making adjustments enabling them to accurately measure public opinion. But they worry about the days ahead.

"If we'd have said 20 years ago that we'd be getting just a 20 percent response rate, we'd have been horrified," said David Moore, a former senior analyst for the Gallup Organization whose forthcoming book "The Opinion Makers" highlights the challenges.

He added: "In the long run, the industry is very concerned about changes. But in the short run, at least in this election cycle, people feel like they will be able to confront the problems."

Mark Mellman, who polls for many Democratic candidates, bemoaned "the panoply of technologies that allow people to be masters of their own environment" and avoid pollster calls.

Besides making polls harder to take, the diminishing response rate raises the question of whether people who elude pollsters have different attitudes from people who submit to interviews.

"Right now, the obstacles can be surmounted with the right kind of procedures. But it may get to the point in the not too distant future when the obstacles can't be surmounted," Mellman said.

With the deluge of political polls already under way, polling experts say the public needs to understand the fallibility of public opinion surveys. They advise people to be wary of Internet polling, small-sample surveys, polls sponsored by advocacy groups and overstatements about how many people have actually made up their minds.