Do Pollsters Need Random Samples?
Tuesday, Oct. 13, 2009 by Mark Blumenthal Whenever I’m asked to speak about polling, someone always asks about the Internet: When will pollsters start conducting their surveys online rather than by telephone? The question is no longer hypothetical. Surveys based on “panels” of respondents recruited online to answer questions on the Internet have been rapidly gaining acceptance in commercial market research. While most political opinion surveys are still done by telephone, we now see Internet surveys conducted by organizations like Harris Interactive, Zogby International and YouGov/Polimetrix cropping up more often. (Disclosure: YouGov/Polimetrix is the owner and primary sponsor of my Web site, Pollster.com.) The growing use of Internet panel surveys has created significant controversy because the sampling method most of them use breaks with a critical element of survey orthodoxy. That debate got a significant jolt last month when ABC News polling director Gary Langer published a new st
