How much do these stations pay for these polls?
I can make a call a minute, or 180 calls in three hours between 5:30 pm and 8:30 pm, or 540 calls over three nights. Assuming a 20% response rate, six people can make enough calls. Assuming a payment rate of $10 an hour over 5 people over 9 hours each, that is $450. I can fit all of them into the basement of my house. So what is to stop me from picking 3,240 random names out of the White pages for a particular locality, and spend $450 to conduct my own poll?
Or rather, what is to stop the Atlas forum from collectively conducting a poll? If we had 20 volunteers, each would only need to make (600 x 5 / 20) = 150 calls, which can be made in the space of three hours. All we would need is for one person to cut the list. Then there is a simple formula to calculate margin of error. If our poll comes out as better than a reputable pollster, we have just established ourselves, gentlemen!
