This is Planet Money from NPR.

A few weeks ago, Jeff, you and I headed to Pekipsi, New York to visit the Marist College

polling center.

Polling is how we figure out what Americans think about anything.

And for pollsters, this is the most exciting time of the year.

Right here, they are making hundreds of thousands of calls to figure out who's likely to win

in the upcoming midterm elections.

And the person tasked with training up all the people who do the dialing is Daniella Charter.

And Daniella has agreed not only to let us sit in on a training, but later tonight, she's

going to let us do the dialing for a real poll.

But first, she needs to run us through the script we're going to use.

So why don't we start Jeff?

We need that introduction.

My first victim.

Hello.

My name is Jeff. I'm calling for Marist College.

We're talking to people in your community and collecting opinions about issues facing

residents.

What, who are you?

Why are you calling me?

Daniella's mission is to prepare us for the hundreds of calls we're going to make tonight.

And all the different ways people are going to try to avoid answering our survey.

...