Why polls aren't reliable

Okay so you're sitting down for dinner with your family, its about 5:30 and the phone rings. Of course its not a family member or a friend, or someone you actually care about talking to. Now, plenty of people, including myself, care about the upcoming election and have decided who they plan on voting for but, honestly, if you are calling me during dinner I'm going to do my best to rush you off the phone. Phone polls are right up there with telemarketers in my opinion. Yes I care about the election, yes I plan on voting, but do I care enough to explain my reasoning to a complete stranger at an inconvinient time? Absolutely not.

I think the focus on the importance of polls during elections is too excessive. I'm sure they are accurate to a certain extent but, can we really trust that the outcome with mimic what the polls are saying? First of all, plenty of people "promise" they will vote. Especially young people, the 18-30 group is where they put us, I believe. The young vote is higher than ever, as shown in the primaries, which is awesome. However, young voters are much more eager to participate in a poll with their strong political opinions than to actually get out there and vote when it matters. Secondly, as I just mentioned, things such as phone polls are unreliable in results. I don't think the outcome of these polls is completely askew, but I just don't agree that they should be taken too seriously. The only thing that matters are the elections, the campaign tactics carefully executed by the candidates will, hopefully, effect swing voters and the most crucial thing is getting those people to the voting booths. On that day, none of these polls will matter anymore, and just because one candidate had a good poll standing in February, does not mean they will be the next president in November.

In the article, Obama Narrowly Leads McCain in AP Poll, which I found at http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080211/ap_on_el_pr/presidential_race_ap_poll, discusses the lead that Obama has over McCain and Clinton -- who are tied, for the next president. I was reading along happily, because I am an Obama fan, and was stopped dead in my tracks by this line.

"The survey was conducted from Feb. 7-10 and involved telephone interviews with 1,029 adults."

The dreaded telephone interviews. My 17 year old brother probably answered the phone at my house and told them something to shut them up, and I can guarantee he knows nothing about politics. Obama is also a big fan amongst young voters, and, as I previously mentioned, young people often promise to vote and are nowhere to be found on election day.

As much as I would love to believe Obama is the next president, I am not going to be convinced by a telephone poll. Yuck.

Til Next time..
Jess :)