Registration-Based Sampling (RBS)

Registration-based sampling (RBS) is a sampling frame and sampling technique that has been used, with growing frequency in the past two decades, for conducting election polls. RBS frames for a given geopolitical area can be built by researchers using public records for that political jurisdiction, or they can be purchased from vendors who already have done the legwork. Unlike the random-digit dialing (RDD) telephone sampling frame that has been used primary for election polling since the 1980s, the RBS frame is comprised of a list of names, addresses, and oftentimes telephone numbers of registered voters. An immediate advantage of RBS is that the name of the sampled voter is available for use in gaining that respondent's cooperation. Another major advantage of the RBS frame over ...