The bond referendum won with 73.4 percent of the vote. A mail poll predicted it would win with 75 percent of the vote, while the phone survey predicted it would win with 83 percent of the vote. Meyer believes telephone polls are falling into ill repute because of an increasing unwillingness of telemarketing-weary people to muster the patience to participate, and if they do, to concentrate very hard on their answers. This trend is still less of a problem in the South where people are more polite, Meyer said. Meyer likes mail surveys, too, because of their ability to ask more detailed questions and capture nuances of attitudes.
Questions asked by telephone, on the other hand, have to be kept simple and short.
The decisive advantage for telephone surveys, though, has proved to be the timeliness of the data. Meyer's mail survey had to stop collecting data within two weeks of the election, whereas Stevenson's telephone survey continued making calls up through the weekend before the election. The professors' contest is based on more than personal rivalry. Meyer introduced social science methods to journalism with concepts including precision journalism and database journalism. Stevenson nurtured the Carolina Poll during the many years he taught a graduate course that applied quantitative research methods to journalism and mass communication.