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 often sample from voter files and include people in our samples who record their cellphone number when they register to vote.  We have also started to include cellphone sample in our RDD samples.  Consistent with public pollsters we find it does not materially alter results, but we anticipate that this may change in the near future.

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