With elections dominating the news at the state and federal level, a top national Democratic pollster criticized aspects of political polling culture and offered his analysis on the issues surrounding recall elections.

Mark Mellman of the Democratic opinion research organization The Mellman Group spoke at the Madison Club Thursday and said he was concerned with the effect new technology was having on the polling results.

“It’s harder to get ahold of people than it used to be,” Mellman said. “Most of us have screened calls on our cell phone. My mother doesn’t but she’s 83. She picks up every time. But it’s a problem because you’re obviously missing a part of the electorate.”

Mellman said missing this certain slice of the electorate has been a major problem in recent polling.

For example, when doing polling for Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nevada, Mellman said there was a 17 point difference between polls only reaching landline phones and polls reaching both landline phones and cell phones.

University of Wisconsin political science professor Barry Burden recommended several steps students can take to navigate the polling-saturated media environment of the upcoming months.

Burden emphasized the importance of not giving any one survey too much credit.

He said poll numbers bounce around because of sampling error, which is a result of interviewing a limited number of respondents. This sampling error often means differences of two or three percentage points and are probably not meaningful in a statistical sense, Burden said.

Burden also said a key thing to keep in mind is how many respondents are familiar with the candidates. He said surveys conducted early in the campaign season tend to reflect name recognition, and this can change as lesser-known candidates become more recognizable through debates, media coverage and advertisements.

While Mellman spent much of his time discussing the nature of polling, he also divulged his predictions for the upcoming elections. He currently collects data for the state Senate Democrats, Rep. Kelda Roys, D-Madison, and the Democratic Governors Association.

Mellman also discussed the recall election and the biggest issues influencing the outcome. He said elections rarely end up being about a single issue like collective bargaining rights, and he predicted the issue alone would not be enough to recall Walker.

However, Mellman said when looking at independent voters in the Midwest, an area that is important to them is the “polarizing and divisive” nature of how Walker governed, which Mellman said could hurt him the most in the recall election. 

Mellman also talked about Wisconsin’s influence on the presidential election in November. Mellman denied that a win or loss for Walker would reflect much for the general direction of the country, and he said Wisconsin was not one of the top swing states in the election.

However, he added Wisconsin did have a significant impact on bringing certain issues to the forefront of the national conversation.

“What happened with Occupy and Madison gave a voice to an electorate that was more focused on jobs than spending cuts,” Mellman said. “Before then, how we were going to cut spending was the only conversation in Washington. [There was] no discussion of creating jobs or protecting the middle class.”