A question on polling (particularly the old fart tracking of Gallup and Rasmussen)...

[Aviation Pro]

....I read recently that to produce their statistics and analysis they run the poll through three distinct set of numbers with respect to percentage of Democrats, Republicants, and Too-Stupid-To-Make-Up-Their-Fucking-Minds-And-Stick-To-Their-Choices (Independents). The historical numbers are 38, 35, and 27. So the question is the following: since registration of Democrats is in record numbers, aren't these worthless polls compromised?

[skids]

1. Not really...

They are doing the best they can in their experience to weight things correctly so that they get close to the "actual" results when factoring in historical correlations.

Rasmussen with it's "likely voter" model, though, is probably underestimating an unprecedented ground game on the part of the Obama campaign and unprecedented enthusiasm.

[Janice325]

2. Forgive my ignorance, but how are these polls (like Gallup, Rasmussen, etc)

conducted?

I'm just wondering if they're done by telephone, and if they could be skewed because so many folks have cellular instead of landline phones. I don't believe cell numbers are listed. I read or heard something about way back when, but I don't really remember.