Election day and cell phones
Published November 02, 2004
Congratulations reader, we made it to election day. You probably know that the They of the world say the election will be a dead heat and drag on for months. Here is why they are wrong. For whatever reason, and I am sure you have heard this, cell phone users are not being polled. There are over 100 million cell phones active in America today, I know... I have been in the wireless business for over 7 years. Well, just this weekend it finally occurred to someone to take the pulse of the cell phone users of America. As you may have surmised, they are overwhelmingly Democrat (young, mobile, educated, and aware... who else would they choose?). Specifically the numbers of cell phone users (just released Monday) are 55% for Senator Kerry vs 40% for President Bush. In the world of politics, that is a landslide. Oh, the other 5% were trying to type emoticons into their cell phones when they crashed their car into a tree.
Now, the numbers can be used however you want. Mark Twain taught us there are three lies: Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics. I am going to give my assessment, being as though 'I am Correct' and all. Grab a pen, and follow along. The average poll released contains roughly 1200 participants every time. In order to get 1200 participants, the average of people who have to be called is 10,000. This is not arbitrary info folks, because
- this statistic comes straight from the mouth of master pollster John Zogby, and
- I wanted to see if I could toss off 'arbitrary' and sound smart. Someone look that one up and tell me how I did.
- Election day and cell phones
- Published: November 02, 2004
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- Section: Politics
- Writer: Lono
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Comments
Interesting idea, Lono. I've seen people say the cell phone market is just the affluent. But, some people with low incomes actually prefer cell phones. (And, sometimes their home phone companies help them make that decision by turning their phones off.) I await seeing how close projections match reality.
Bryan, it is okay to have projections. But, we should not put too much faith in them. The margin of error is too significant in a race this close.
It feels good to see information backing an opinion, Lono - you must be a leftie :-)
One minor factoid: the stats statement was made by Benjamin Disraeli, mentioned by Mark Twain.







See, I don't want to know tonight because news organizations are going to rush to judgement. I mean, we might have 10,000 military ballots from overseas. Don't theirs count? If this election IS as close as they say, then every vote does count, and that includes military.
I would rather them take their time over the next week and get an accurate number and not some incident where news organizations jump to their conclusion.