From the Reporters

Text Polling

 

With a week before the election, Bush and Kerry are now in a statistical dead heat in national polls by Harris Interactive, Reuters/Zogby and the Washington Post, according to Blooomberg News. In a race this tight, polls can lose some of their utility, since the percentage difference between the candidates is often less than the standard statistical margin of error inherent in political polls, which typically survey between 1,000 and 2,500 people. At the point when a poll becomes this close, is there any way to squeeze out more accurate data?

Enter your cell phone. A company called Orion Information Services (OIS) announced Monday that it is teaming up with EchoStar Communications to create a polling forum that allows large numbers of people to register poll preferences via cell phone text messaging. According to the company, this will enable an unlimited number of voters to register their poll votes, promising to immediately capture the preferences of a dramatically larger segment of the voting population.

"The poll allows DISH Network customers who subscribe to AT&T Wireless, Cingular Wireless or Verizon Wireless to cast a 'vote' for their favorite presidential candidate simply by using the text messaging feature on their cell phones," said Kristian Gjerding, the CEO of OIS.

Could this type of technology represent a valuable advance in political science, further speeding up and democratizing the world of polling and allowing for more accurate information than traditional procedures? Or will it just add yet another voice to the existing cacophony and hasten the descent of the political poll into the realm of so much other useless information?