The impact of cell phones on polling

Over at the Pew Center, they've got a new study digging into the impact of cell phones - and the large numbers of people going cell-only - on telephone survey research.

A new study of the issue finds that cell-only Americans – an estimated 7%-9% of the general public – are significantly different in many ways from those reachable on a landline. They are younger, less affluent, less likely to be married or to own their home, and more liberal on many political questions.

Yet despite these differences, the absence of this group from traditional telephone surveys has only a minimal impact on the results. Specifically, the study shows that including cell-only respondents with those interviewed from a standard landline sample, and weighting the resulting combined sample to the full U.S. public demographically, changes the overall results of the poll by no more than one percentage point on any of nine key political questions included in the study.

Read the full report. Hat tip to Low on the Hog.