Polling season is ramping up. My household has gotten at least 3 in the last week or so.
I personally always answer polls if I have the time. How many on this board do that?
I’ve lived in four states since I’ve been old enough to vote (NJ, PA, MA & CA). Not once, not ever have I ever been polled. I actually wish I was for some reason!
Try living in Ohio. I think caller ID was invented for us.
I’ve been so telemarketed out that I just automatically shut any of that stuff down.
I lived in Ohio through three presidential elections. You’d think the first thing they’d want to know is, “Are you a US citizen, eligible to vote in Ohio?” But no – I’m sure my resident-alien voice skewed a few polls in strange directions.
I’ve been Gallup polled before, but I’ve gone into high hermit mode and no longer answer numbers I don’t recognize.
i love doing market research surveys and polls, but it is too hard to do only them and avoid the polls/surveys/scams
I don’t answer calls from unrecognized numbers. We cranky old guys are underrepresented in polls.
Having been on the other side, I always help out.
Plus sometimes you can find out a little about a candidate’s strategy, once you figure out who the poll is for, from the questions.
I get polling calls, both personal and robotic, seldom enough that I do take the time to answer them.
If they were happening every day, probably not, but I’m at about one every two months.
I am rarely bored enough to take the time, but sometimes.
And then you can fuck with the poll. I feel much less guilty about it when the call is from a recording. In fact, not guilty at all.
Anyone know the percentage of landlines versus cell phones called?
I canceled my landline, but kept the number for my 2nd cellphone, although I registered with the Do Not Call registry, I get a LOT of unknown calls. No message left, nuthin.
I might answer a political poll if knew a pollster was calling.
I usually have nothing better to do, so if I bother to answer the phone, I’ll participate until I get questions like “Knowing that Candidate X is a baby-killing librul would you still vote for her?”
Invariably, when I am called, I am asked if I am on a cellphone; when I asked why, I was told that they couldn’t use cellphone data as they couldn’t link the phone number to the location. Then again, aren’t cellphone phone number prefixes assigned to specific companies, so they should be able to tell in advance which numbers are for cellphones?
I just stopped answering these as well, especially as they tended to be thinly disguised attack pieces (“I will read some statements about the candidates, and you tell me if you are more or less likely to vote for that person: Candidate A is endorsed by Everybody And Their Mothers…Candidate B was seen going into a bathroom at the same time as a Special Interest Group Lobbyist”).
The proper response is, “One baby or two?” 
No landline and I do not answer cell calls from non-contacts.
Back when I had a landline, I’d answer polls from the viewpoint of a character I’d invent on the spot.
When I get a call from a recording, I never stay on the line long enough to tell who or what it’s from. So some of those might be political polls.
For human-conducted polls, though, I would answer… except that my only phone is a cell phone with an out-of-state area code, so even in the rare instance that I do get a call, they’re not actually looking for me.
No land-line anymore so I haven’t had a call in ages. Last one was easily over 10 years ago about the RI governor’s race. The person on the phone couldn’t pronounce the candidate’s names right. I usually decline to respond to polls of any kind, but in the past did go through a couple of commercial surveys out of curiosity.
Similar to this. I have never gotten polled.
I hang up as soon as I hear a recording, but I always assumed they polled using humans because anyone with an IQ greater than 40 doesn’t listen to robocalls.
I assumed robocalls are the equivalent to spam on the telephone. Cheap to make, but worth it if only 1 out of 200 people listen to it.
I am too wary of push polling to do so. It’s the same sort of reason why I run adblock.
I wish I weren’t, as I very much support stuff like FiveThirtyEight, and that depends on polling.
See, all these and a few other reasons are why I spent October of 2012 preaching “Don’t trust your favorite polls” to my Romney-ite family. They’d say “Well, the Priapus Poll says Mitt and Oh-Bumma are neck an’ neck” and I was fond of saying “So, a poll of people old and white enough to have a landline, and lonely enough to answer an Unknown Number.”
Anybody else dying to call kayaker just to see who’d answer the phone?
“Ahh, a stalwart member of the venerable fifth estate, truly a treat to chat with one such as yourself. C. Curlington Wentworth the Third at your cervex, but do call me “Curly”, seems all the help does. So, what do I think of the intellectually indigent interlopers foolish enough to run for office? Beaucoup déclassé, what?..
Excuse me, my ‘Earl Grey, Hot’ is ready. Could you perchance hold for a wee moment, or perhaps until I grow weary of listening to you breathe? Chip, chip!”