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www.electoral-vote.com, cause this and every house poll could be innaccurate cause of pollsters calling voters that don't live in the specific district there polling(due to zip codes and area areas that belong to that district, but could be in another district as well, this could be to garrymandered districts and are so narrow and screwed up looking that it's hard to poll)
Politics
Today's sermon is about the evils of the NANP. For those readers who don't happen to be telecommunications engineers, some explanation is in order; the connection to polling and politics will become clear shortly. The United States, its territories, Canada, and 16 nations in the Carribean use an integrated system in which all telephone numbers are 10 digits in the form AAA-NXX-XXXX, in which AAA is the area code, NXX is the exchange, and XXXX is the subscriber line. It is called the NANP - North American Numbering Plan. Back before the AT&T monopoly was broken up in 1984, most states had at most two or three area codes.
To a first approximation, the telephone system consists of exchanges (buildings full of switching equipment), each identified by an area code and exchange. Thus 914-949-xxxx is an exchange in White Plains, NY, to which 10,000 nearby telephone are connected, numbered 914-949-0000 through 914-949-9999.
With the need for ever more telephone numbers for faxes, computers, credit card verification, etc., plus the introduction of cell phones and multiple providers, the situation has gotten out of hand. Area codes and exchanges have proliferated wildly. Nevertheless, one principle has been maintained: area codes don't cross state lines.
All these developments have consequences for (telephone) polling. Suppose a polling firm is commissioned to do a poll in the close Senate race in Missouri. They know they have to poll area codes 314, 417, 573, 636, 660, and 816, although not equally since they are not equally populated. Complicated, but still doable.
The introduction of Internet telephony (VoIP) services, such Skype and Vonage, wreaked havoc with this scheme. VoIP customers can usually choose any area code they want. For example, a man in Omaha might choose Florida area code 561 so his mother in Florida could call him as a free local call. It also means that a pollster randomly calling 561 numbers might get someone who doesn't live in Florida. Since most people still have area codes that correctly designate which state they live in, for Senate polls, the problem is still manageable.
However, for House polls the problem is substantial. The layout of the area codes and exchanges do not align with congressional districts at all. While 914-949-xxxx numbers all lie entirely within NY-18, other exchanges straddle congressional district boundaries, especially when the CD has been gerrymandered into a pretzel. As a consequence, a pollster assigned to poll for some House race may have to call multiple area codes and exchanges, some of whose numbers lie within the district and some of whose numbers lie outside the district. Reverse lookup of the number about to be called is not always possible because many people have unlisted numbers.
As a consequence, some of the people polled may, in fact, not live in the district in question and some people who do live there may be missed. Of course the first question could something like be "Are you a registered voter in congressional district IN-07?" However, most voters probably don't know their CD number and some may be put off by such a question and hang up. Starting with "Hi, I'm doing a poll from the XYZ company. What's your zipcode?" is definitely a nonstarter.
This issue came up last week with a poll of IN-07 in which Eric Dickerson (R) was slightly ahead of incumbent Julia Carson (D-IN). Many people suspect that the result was due to the pollster inadvertently calling people just outside this district, which is shaped like an immune-system cell, with little hooks sticking out all over its periphery, carefully avoiding Republican territory. There is no obvious solution to calling the wrong people, so House polls have to be taken with a grain of salt
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