An increase in the number of people who have traded land line telephone service for other forms of communication could prompt election campaign pollsters to hang up some traditional survey techniques.

“I think by 2016, you'll see more of a trending towards Internet polling,” said Dick Bennett, president and founder of American Research Group, based in Manchester. “Telephone polling won't go away, but the trend will be towards more online polling, and by that I mean smartphone use. We're looking at apps that people can download to participate.”

“I would agree that is the way things are headed, but I'm not happy with that,” said Andrew Smith, director of the University of New Hampshire Survey Center.

“There is no way to random sample email addresses or people who have downloaded a smartphone app,'' Smith said. “The key to accurately measuring the population is random sampling.”

A 2011 report published by the National Center for Health Statistics says more than one in four U.S. homes, or 26.6 percent, had only a wireless phone as a means of communication as of June 2010. CTIA-The Wireless Association, an international nonprofit membership organization, says the percentage rose to 31.6 percent by December 2011. The U.S. Center for Disease Control reported that from 2003 to 2009, the proportion of U.S. adults who lived in cellphone-only households increased by more than 700 percent.

NCHS says 16 percent of people 18 or older living in New Hampshire do so in cellphone-only households.

So-called “robo-polls,'' for which computers randomly select and dial a number, ignore cellphone-only households because federal law prohibits using auto-dialing software to call a cellphone.

For poll takers, however, there is a silver lining in the situation.

“Research shows these same people who are switching to cellphones — the young adults — they are also the people least likely to vote,” said Bennett.

“The data on ownership of cellphones shows there's been a rise in cellphone-only households in urban areas,” said Smith. “The truth is we just don't have many areas like that in New Hampshire.”

Pollsters also cite declining participation in their surveys as a problem. A study released by the Pew Research Center in May showed a significant drop in the percentage of households taking part in its surveys. The number of households in which an adult could be reached at all fell from 90 percent in 1997 to 62 percent in 2012, while the number where adults agreed to participate in an interview was only 14 percent.

“The response rates are very discouraging,” said Smith. “There are some national polls that report response rates between 5 and 10 percent. That means 90 to 95 percent of the people they call don't talk to them. That's why I'm not a fan of the trend towards the Internet. It's even easier to ignore an email than a phone call.”

Bennett said that while telephone surveying may be used less by pollsters during future election cycles, it will never go away completely and may yield more accurate data than people think.

“The people who do answer the phone, who take part in the surveys — they want their opinions to be heard,” said Bennett. “They are also the ones most likely to vote.”

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Paul Feely may be reached at pfeely@unionleader.com.