To the editor:
We’re in the 21st century. For pollsters, that’s brought about changes along with challenges manifested in the last two presidential election cycle predictions.
The tools used by pollsters to derive results have changed. The pollsters need to change. Maybe do a better job of selecting focus groups. If things happen once, it’s a surprise. Twice is a pattern. No conspiracies but a clear message to the polling industry they need to do better to remain relevant,
The first major change has been the explosion of cell phones. In 2000 there were 109.5 million in 2008 that jumped to 261 million in 2016 there were 396 million and this year its over 405 million.
Along with that growth have been changes in FCC rules that allow you to take your phone number with you. That means you can have a Chicago 312 area code phone, take a job and move to Texas with your 312 area code, job takes you from Texas to Columbus OH and then retirement in North Carolina and you still have that 312 area code and phone number.
Imagine that scenario a million times over. Hard to use random phone number polling when you have few clues to where that phone number and owner are physically. It’s a far cry from back in the good old days when pollsters had a very powerful (and free) tool called the White Pages of your phonebook.
The White Pages gave names and addresses of everyone with a phone who didn’t pay a fee for an unlisted number. With that information it was easier to learn how many voters were in each home. The address allowed pollsters to derive which precincts the residents went to vote. Tax rolls showed value of homes that correlates to income and a study of precincts historical voting data derived things like which party or issues was favored in local, state and federal elections. All from a phone book, area codes and the three-digit prefix assigned to specific geographic areas.
Along with the aforementioned cell phone data, ATT and other major phone companies wanted to get out of the traditional phone business raising prices to the point where customers switched to cell phones or got an alternative like the phone service Spectrum or Comcast. If you own a cell phone(s) for your family member(s), get a call from a number you don’t recognize most people let it go to voice mail.
If no message is left or its a sales pitch or pollster (who rarely leave messages), the vast majority of people simply call block that number. The phone companies and cable companies now offer free services to block calls and many handsets sold for home use allow call blocking.
Again, you can’t poll people you can’t talk to. Much tougher job than it was two decades ago.
In the two most recent elections we saw a shift to online communications with Facebook, Twitter, TikTok and other social media. Its a way to reach more voters and with the use of algorithms hit very specific voter targets with very targeted messages. There are recent studies including one from USC that indicate there are conspiracy groups like QAnon who promote and advise people to speak to pollsters for the specific reason of giving inaccurate information like who they support.
We have also seen the effects of choose your news where our choices pre-1980 were ABC, CBS, NBC and in some markets, PBS. Now with cable streaming you can choose to get your news from a source that targets to a specific audience. People who watch FoxNews, OAN have a greater likelihood to vote for Republicans while people who watch MSNBC or CNN are more likely to vote for Democrats.
The sought after (and shrinking) swing voter segment is more likely to get their news from more varied sources that may include some FoxNews or some MSNBC, but also standard network news.
Unlike some, I see no conspiracies in very close elections. President Trump’s statements about COVID, including that he had soft peddled the seriousness of the threat, cost him support among women and college educated voters in swing states like MI, WI and PA where his margins of victory in 2016 were razor thin. Conversely the Cuban American vote in FL and the Spanish speaking Texans in South Texas showed more support for President Trump than he got in 2016 helping him carry those states for a second time.
In my amateur poll watching opinion, I think President Trump generates little or no middle ground. He has a combative personality. His “My way or the highway” style is seen as a strength by his supporters. It has served him well at the Trump Organization but it’s proven to be double edged with voters as seen in MI compared to FL.
I know, based on the GOP fund-raising I have received gave an option to continue to donate $25/$50/$100 a month for post-election expenses. You had to opt out of donating or get charged every month. It’s clear now that some of those post-election expenses are going to be court challenges in states like MI where former VP Biden has a 2.5% margin over President Trump with 99% of the vote counted. Yet President Trump readily accepted winning by 0.3% in 2016.
Based on what we have witnessed from the recently appointed US Postmaster General ordering destruction of mail sorting machines, limiting overtime and this week ignoring a judge’s order to sweep the post offices to make sure all ballots mailed reached their final destination on Nov. 3, it’s clear the GOP presidential campaign didn’t want all ballots mailed to arrive on time to be valid.
Based on President Trump’s post-election remarks and the court filings on his campaign’s behalf, it’s clear President Trump isn’t interested in all votes being counted in any state that has a close margin where he led two hours after polls closed, only in those states where he trails and/or former VP Biden was declared the winner.
At the end of the vice presidential debate in October, U.S. Senator Mike Lee (R) Utah tweeted: “Democracy isn’t the objective; liberty, peace, and prosperity are. We want the human condition to flourish. Rank democracy can thwart that.”
I think voting is a key component in our representative democracy. All votes need to be counted in representative democracies. Democracy no longer being an objective makes sense if our county’s future is based on one political party’s definitions of liberty, peace and prosperity.
Why vote if democracy isn’t an objective?
— Respectfully submitted, Couchman
