Discuss the development of telephone polls and Internet polls.

What will be an ideal response?

Answers will vary.In the earliest days of scientific polling, interviewers typically went door to door locating respondents. Such in-person surveys were essential in the mid-twentieth century, when a surprisingly large number of homes did not have telephones. In time, the number of homes without phones dwindled, and polling organizations determined that they could obtain satisfactory samples of voters through telephone interviews alone. In recent years, poll takers have even replaced human interviewers with prerecorded messages that solicit responses. Such methods allow companies to conduct very large numbers of polls at little cost. Questions have arisen as to whether automated polling is as accurate as polling that uses live interviewers, however.Further complications for telephone poll takers include the increase in the use of cell phones-which not all pollsters bother to call. Today, many cell phone users no longer have a landline number. An additional problem is the public's growing use of Skype and other Internet-based telephone systems. Poll takers have not yet determined a way to integrate such users into their polls. Finally, a growing number of people simply refuse to participate in telephone surveys. Technological advances have opened up a new possibility-the Internet survey. The Harris Poll now specializes in this type of research. As when telephone interviews were introduced, serious questions were raised as to whether the samples obtained by Harris and other Internet polling firms could be representative. Internet usage has become extremely widespread, but it is still not universal.