But many of the public opinion researchers gathered here this weekend say surveys done strictly online don't measure up. The Detroit News. Calif. The company puts together a panel of people and then supplies interactive television equipment to those who don't have Internet access. Data is then collected. Traditional pollsters question whether a volunteer Internet sample can accurately be projected to the entire population.
Internet users tend to be more educated, wealthier and white than the population as a whole.
The population has also shown a tendency to vote more often and be more cynical. The Internet panels have been more warmly received in the fields of health research and market research because Harris is able to find a very specific sample that would be hard to find by telephone. Pollsters say the Internet allows them to collect public attitudes more quickly and cheaply than the telephone. But Traugott said the number of American adults who go online, roughly half, is not high enough yet to provide a cross-section of the population. Pollsters are working hard to figure out how to harness the speed, power and efficiency of the Internet.