Please define 'likely' voters included in polls

[DebJ]

I don't know who they mean!

[shraby]

1. I think it's people who voted in

the last election.

[napi21]

2. I think different pollsters do it differently, but most use several

pieces of information. Did you vote in the 2000 election, how likely are you to vote this year, and I think they also include some weighted average for your age bracket since most people over 55 will vote, and most under 25 don't.

The things that could skew these poll results this year are: voter anger which would drive a far higher # of people to the polls, and the fear of the younger voter that shrub will have no other option than to activate the draft because all he wasn't to do is start more wars, which is also going to drive a higher # of the youth vote to the polls.

I don't think there's any way for the pollsters to determine either of those things with any accuracy.

[DebJ]

4. are they ONLY using people who voted before?

We've registered 800 new voters in the past six weeks. Are they invisible?

[K-W]

6. No, they use other measures, but that is one of them, so yes

new voters will be more likely to fall out of the likely voters category.

[papau]

3. Give more weight to opinion of those that voted in last election.

:-)

[Lefty48197]

5. I think it means you've voted in the last 2 or 3 elections

or you state emphatically that you WILL be at the polls next time. There's a new dynamic in 2004. There's a lot of voters interested, who aren't "likely voters" by the first definition, but they sure as heck plan on showing up this year, mostly because they want to fire Bush. He's united his opposition.