Poor and Old more likely to have landlines - Are they skewing the polls?

Vanity | today | jerodcan

[Coldwater Creek]

Yep! that’s me, old and poor.

[caver]

I still have a landline but only to get DSL service.

[Egon]

We’ve got DSL. ...and a fax machine. That implies a land-line.

[Vaquero]

I would not be without a land line.....no one I know at work or among my acquaintences only has cell phones.

[Cringing Negativism Network]

On what please, do you base your “poor” portion of this vanity?

I understand the point, and agree pollsters really don’t have any good way of dealing (either) with the increasing use of cell/blackberries.

But it seems a big leap to presume those not infatuated with tech gimmicks, make their decisions based on being broke.

[Zeddicus]

Meh. We have a landline, I f'ing hate cellphones. We keep two prepaid cellphones which we only take for emergency use when we go out. They're always shut off.

The Left uses the landline argument on their side too - say young people, who tend to vote Democrat, overwhelmingly favor cellphones over landlines.

I don't think the poor argument works much either. Seems like the poorer someone is, the more likely they are to have a fancy cellphone.

[cuz_it_aint_their_money]

Let's see, DSL for the computer at home needs a landline...
OH! and then there's the two Hi Def flat panel TVs hooked up to Dish Network that need to be connected to landline...
Yep! Guess that makes me "old and poor"!

[nuconvert]

I keep a landline.

Can you get a reverse 911 on your cell?

[meyer]

Polling on a cell phone would incur usage charges on the recipient of such calls - that’s a big fat No-No! I would say that what’s potentially skewing polls is caller ID.

[Tail Gunner John]

No land line here. Both sons and daughter’s home no land line.

After Sprint broadband was made available in my area no reason for land line.

All in my family are voting Republican.

[Dawn531]

We use VOIP, but caller ID shows “blocked” from any solicitations, and that would include people calling to take a poll. During this polling season, I have occasionally answered a “blocked” call just to see if it was a pollster, and once it was. I had a couple preliminary questions asked of me and then they told me I didn’t fit the demographic they were looking for, sigh, I tried, LOL.

[meyer]

Can you get a reverse 911 on your cell?

Reverse 911? For WHAT?

[IamConservative]

I got a call last night on the land line asking for my 20 year old daughter. This will be her first Presidential election and she recently registered. Regrettably, she has fallen under the spell on The One. When I told the pollster she wasn’t home, he polled me thinking They were interested in which local campaign commercials were convincing or not. Otherwise it was a straight up how certain is it that you will vote and who will you vote for survey. There was no apparent bias. I assume it was a candidate doing the poll, but I couldn’t tell who. I’ve gotten push polls before at this wasn’t one.

I found it interesting they called my daughter. She has never voted in any election before, but did recently register. My only conclusion is they are trying to determine what kind of turnout this demographic might have.

[jmcenanly]

During the polling for the 1932 election, the first election in which they did extensive telephone polling, Hoover had a modest lead over Roosevelt. However, as every Freeper knows, Hoover lost. The polling had skewed toward those who could afford telephones.
In the quarter century since then, we have come full circle.

[~Vor~]

"Seems like the poorer someone is, the more likely they are to have a fancy cellphone."

I totally agree with this statement...at least in the area where I live...all have cells and usually the latest in high tech...be it computers or TV's...I remember when our city was installing fiber optic cables (tv, phone & internet service)...guess where the cables were put in first??...yep...at the government subsidized housing projects...

[tapatio]

I have a land line and a cell phone.

So I guess it depends on which one I use at any given time,to

figure out which category I will be lumped into.

[Reagan69]

THe poor people I’ve seenhave cells.

My 85 y/o mom has one.

GO FIGURE!

[nuconvert]

I’ve had several.....asking people to watch for a missing child in the area, warning about a police search for a suspect in the area, I think they may do it for extreme weather conditions also.

[major-pelham]

There is much research on landline abandonment. It is a growing trend but not yet extant. And it is true that wireless only peeps tend to be younger, income not a key determinant. It is possible that Obama has more supporters among abandonees than McCain.