no chance of being included in telephone surveys. Only about 2% of households have no telephone service. Without using in-person interviewing or a mail survey, there is no way to reach these phoneless households. Statistical weighting of our telephone samples helps to correct for the omission of households without any telephone service, but some bias undoubtedly remains for certain kinds of questions, especially for surveys focused on low-income populations. Because people in households with no telephone service are less likely than others to vote, their omission has not seriously damaged the accuracy of pre-election polls. This is an issue of continuing concern to pollsters. It is the subject of a great deal of ongoing research. Election Polling Are election polls accurate? There was a surge in interest in election polling in the highly competitive presidential elections in 2004 and 2008. In the last several election cycles, most national telephone polls have been very accurate. The National Council on Public Polls compiles the election forecasts of the major national polls, and in both 2004 and 2008, these estimates were very good predictors of the final vote. How do you know who is really going to vote? One of the most difficult aspects of conducting election polls is determining whether a respondent will actually vote in the election. Different pollsters use different sets of questions to help identify likely voters. Overall, the aim of defining likely voters is not to predict whether individuals will vote, but to accurately estimate the preferences of