Bill Williams designed a polling activity for his Algebra II Class.  Students researched phone numbers and wrote the poll script.  From the internet students located a list of all of the area codes and prefixes in Pennsylvania. There were over 7,000.  Each prefix received one call from one of the students.

SBC donated phone cards to cover the cost of the long distance calls.  Students made 7000 calls.  The poll required a register voter to respond. That requirement coupled with fax machine and wrong numbers produced a total response of 154 voters.  Below are the results and a copy of the script students used.  

The results of the poll are 51.6% for John Kerry and 48.4% for George Bush.  This 3.2% difference compared to a 3.4% poll average for the same weekend by the major polling companies, Gallup, Zogby.  The students chose Pennsylvania as their battleground state. 

Many thanks to SBC for their generous contributions and to the residents of Pennsylvania who responded to the poll.

Poll Script

Hello, my name is _________.  I am a student at the International School of the Americas in San Antonio, Texas.  I am not trying to sell you anything; all I need is a moment of your time.  Our Algebra 2 class is conducting a survey.  Will you help us out by answering a few questions regarding the presidential election?

1.     Are you a registered voter?
- If no, “May I speak with someone who is?”

2.     If the election were held today would you vote for--George Bush or John Kerry? (Switch the names every call.)

3.     Did you vote in the last election?

4.     Are you affiliated with a political party? If so, which one?

5.     What is the most important issue that will affect how you vote? 

6.     Do you vote based upon the candidate or their political party? 

The following questions are optional:     

7.     What is your race/ethnicity?

8.     What is your age?

9.     What is your occupation?  W

Thank you for your assistance in our project!  Have a nice day.