Finally, A Cell-Phone-Only Poll

The accuracy of traditional political polls has been called in to question repeatedly this year, often because phone polls don't reach voters who use cell phones as their primary method of communication. But last week Zogby International did the first cell phone poll (www.zogby.com/news/ReadNews.dbm?ID=919), sending text messages to more than 6,000 likely voters between the ages of 18 and 29 who had signed up for Rock the Vote Mobile, a free service from Rock the Vote and Motorola. The results: respondents favor Kerry over Bush 55 to 40 percent (margin of error +/- 1.2 points). Only 2.3 percent of those polled said they didn't plan to vote. According to pollster John Zogby, results of traditional polls also show Kerry leading in the 18-29 demographic. The question now is only: how many cell-phone-only people are there and how many of them will actually vote?