At 1,700 poll stations across the country, an NBC representative polls approximately 30 voters during that day. The voting day is split in half with 15 people polled in the morning and 15 people polled in the afternoon.
Conducting polls is nothing new to NBC. They've been doing it for 15 years. And since September, 1985, NBC has combined its efforts with the Wall Street Journal, creating the Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll.
According to Bill Casey, deputy editor at the Wall Street Journal and liaison for the joint polling, the polls are conducted on general interest, non-specialized topics ranging from politics to social issues. Approximately 10 polls are conducted each year.
"NBC and the Wall Street Journal jointly agree on the event and the timing of the polls. Of course if it's a timely event, like election night, it determines when we will conduct a poll as well as how quickly we need to get the results. "
Collecting the data is a highly scientific process. It starts at NBC where interviewers poll a telephone sampling of 1,600 people nationwide. Polls are conducted for two nights beginning at 5 p.m. and concluding at 10 p.m. local time. This enables NBC to get a full eight hours of interviewing completed each night.
The sample is drawn from 400 locations across the country. Individual households are selected by a probability sample design which is drawn to represent a regional sample. This gives all telephone numbers, listed and unlisted, an equal chance of being selected. The telephone exchanges are then plugged into NBC's computers and the dialing can begin.
One adult, 18 years or older, is chosen from each household. A representative sample of males (approximately 47%), and females (approximately 53%), is obtained. Thus if the quota for males has been reached, only females will be polled for the remainder of the sampling.
Because the procedure involves ...