Cell phone ringing? It's not Gallup

The Associated Press is reporting an interesting slant in polls regarding this year's presidential election. Apparently, many polling organizations do not call cell phone numbers when taking phone surveys of likely voters. In past elections, this wouldn't be much of an issue. But now it could be skewing results.

The reason is that Americans are increasingly abandoning their landlines and only using cell phones. And it's not a trend that appears in all demographics. Young people are more likely to use only a cell phone than older groups.

So will this skew poll results? Pollsters think not, because young people are notoriously lackluster about actually getting out to vote, anyway. But two factors might point to a slight boost for Sen. John Kerry that isn't reflected in surveys.

First, Gallup reports that young people are leaning toward Kerry. Second, there has been an enormous effort to get young people to participate in this year's election. Organizations like Rock the Vote and the YouthVote Coalition have launched high-profile campaigns to get young voters to the polls.

Those efforts are apparently working. Already, more than 1 million people have registered to vote through Rock the Vote's Web site. And according to Gallup, young voters show higher levels of interest in this year's election, higher levels of self-reported voter registration and higher levels of intention to actually vote.

The impact young people will have on this year's election remains to be seen. But polling organizations seem unconcerned with the possibility of their results being skewed by omitting cell numbers. As one pollster told the AP, "It's a manageable problem, at this point, because the size of the population is so small." But as the number of people ditching landlines continues to rise, a change in policy may be necessary before 2008.