Live-caller telephone polling has been used since the 1960s by organizations and politicians in order to implement policies and adjust campaign strategies. While few can argue its effectiveness, the question is being asked if available technology will supplant telephone polling. With a success rate of 10 percent, polling firms only reach one out of 10 of the phone calls a polling firm makes. The advent of the Internet has ushered in many tools to improve the way we do virtually everything, and this includes taking surveys.

A report from The New York Times on November 10, 2012 went through the largest organizations taking polls for the 2012 Presidential Race and it concluded online polling could actually be better than phones. The report pointed out the shortcomings of Gallup, one of the most recognized polling organizations in the country, and the accuracy of the Google (News - Alert) Consumer Surveys poll, which was conducted online.

Polling firms are increasingly coming under pressure because less and less participants are taking part in telephone surveys, which most organizations think is more accurate than other forms of surveys. But this belief has to be reassessed because online surveys are producing more accurate results as access to the Internet has near 100 percent penetration.

The problem with online surveys in the past has been the technology was not widely available, making the group that was able to participate – no matter how large – very selective. This produced results that were not accurate compared to random surveys used with telephone polling. However, today the Internet is available to anyone with a mobile phone and virtually every demographic has access to the technology, making it a resource that can produce random sampling across all groups.

The argument for using telephones is it takes a random polling by calling anyone, but this fact is as honest as campaign promises of a politician. While some organization do make a concerted effort to be truly biased the disparate results from different organizations, even those deemed to be biased, can't be explained. It seems the result is based on who takes the poll for which political party. According to Gallup Mitt Romney was ahead by as much as six percentage points in October amongst likely voters, which was decidedly different than Rand Corporation, Pew (News - Alert) Research, Zogby, and many others.

As mobile phones start replacing many landlines across the country and online communications becomes a norm, landline telephone polling will continue to diminish and polling firms will have to adjust their strategy in order to get more accurate results with the surveys they conduct online and many of the available platforms.