What is a push poll?

A push poll is designed to persuade, not to measure public opinion.  Push polling calls thousands of people, anonymously spreading negative information disguised as questions.  Voter / Consumer Research never engages in push polling.   You can find out more on push polling by visiting the AAPOR website.

Why ask for the youngest voter in the household?

Phone polls always tend to skew a bit old because the person most likely to pick up the phone is an older person.  There are a variety of techniques to adjust for the bias this creates. Ours involves asking for the youngest person who is at home at the time of the call.

If polls are really random, how come I never get called?

Just like rolling the dice, sampling is random.  And just like some people win and others lose, you might or might not be called.  We appreciate all of the people who have helped us by answering our questions.

What about those people who only have a cellphone?

We now include cellphone number in our samples. How many depends a little bit on the nature of the survey but on average about 25% of the calls we make are to people with cellphones.

Are robo polls just like regular polls?

No, they are not.  They can produce substantially different results, although not always.   See the following article published on SurveyPractice.Org:   Method Effects and Robo Polls

What about the Hispanic vote?

Participation by Hispanics is on the increase.    The exit polling conducted in 2012 show that as a proportion of all votes cast the Hispanic share of vote increased by 2% and that Hispanics voted Democratic by a larger margin than in previous elections. There is a lot more to be learned about Hispanic voting, a summary of which you can find here.