Between now and Election Day, you’ll hear a lot about “cell phone voters” that traditional pollsters allegedly miss, and that will provide a hidden bump for Obama that the current polls don’t show. It will, we’re told, even cover for the fact that Obama is running behind Kerry among seniors.

Paul Maslin and Jonathan Brown, writing in Salon:

This election cycle — for the first, and perhaps only, time — this group has the chance to render presidential polls “wrong from the start”: potentially disguising at least 2 to 3 percentage points of Obama support and maybe more.

Maybe. But four things to keep in mind:

1. Those “pro-Obama cell-phone only” voters were strangely absent from most of the Democratic primaries. In fact, Obama generally underperformed his standing in polls before major Democratic primary contests.

The RCP average of polls in New Hampshire had Obama leading by 8.3 percent; he lost by 2.6 percent. In Nevada, the RCP average was 4 percent; she won by 5.5 percent. In Pennsylvania, the RCP average was Clinton by 6.1 percent; she won by 9.2 percent. The final RCP average in Ohio had Clinton by 7.1 percent, but she won by 10.1 percent. In Texas, the RCP average had Clinton ahead by 1.7 percent, but she won by 3.5 percent. In some other states, including Oregon and the Carolinas, Obama did overperform the final polls.

2. Pew Research wrote in mid-July, “Barack Obama holds a 48% to 40% lead in the sample that includes cell phones, and a 46% to 41% advantage in the landline sample. Estimates of congressional vote are the same in the landline and combined samples. Other recent comparisons between landline samples and combined landline and cell samples have found little or no difference in overall results.”

3. There are more cell-phone only voters in America than there were four years ago. Still, recall the conclusion of the CBS News Survey and Election Unit: “In 2004, cell-only people were a small portion of voters, and in fact they were a lot like many of the land-line people who were included in pre-election polls.“

4. Pollsters are making efforts to include cell-phone-only voters. In the AP poll, 22 percent of the sample was from a cell phone, and that poll found McCain ahead, 48 percent to 44 percent. Cell-phone only voters are expected to be about 14 percent of the electorate this time out.