New Hampshire Primary Pollster Got it All Wrong ... Duh!

I was not as astounded by the fact that the "polling experts" got the Democratic New Hampshire primaries so wrong. In fact, I'm more surprised when pollsters get it right.

Look, I have taken many statistics classes in my day, and while I am certainly no expert, I do understand the level of confidence that pollsters put behind their findings.

However, just because they poll enough people, and they try to "demographize" their polls in such a way that they mimic the demographics from previous elections, does not mean they get demographics representative of the nation.

I understand that the pollsters have been right numerous times. Heck, they got the Republican Primaries right, and they were right in Iowa's caucus just a little while ago.

However, while their correctness is a testament to the system, their fallibility just shows how imperfect the system really is.

I don't know about you, but whenever I get a call from one of those pollsters, I don't take the call. And considering that I am a young, black, college graduate, I would represent what has turned out to be one of the key demographics in the 2008 Presidential elections. I know many people just like me who turn bitterly cold when interrupted by a soliciting pollster who wants to ask me questions for 10-20 minutes. There are some people I know that are too nice to hang up or get off the phone with one of these pollsters, and so they reluctantly answer the questions, often times giving rushed or illegitimate answers just so they can abort the call in the fastest way possible without "hurting the feelings" of the pollster.

It is also a proven fact that undereducated and low-income voters are less likely to take the time to take on calls from pollsters, and so this entire demographic often goes underreported in the polls. While polling agencies have come a long way in accounting for this issue, no one can actually predict the effect of the low-income/undereducated vote when there are considerably few people who will talk to pollsters.