How to Tell When 'Yes, I'm Voting' Means 'I'm Going to Flake Out'

Psychologists have finally started to shed some light on flaking out -- that exasperating tendency of people to say they’ll do something and then not do it. People flake out over all kinds of things, from calling you back to taking life-saving medications. Voting is particularly susceptible to this failure of follow-through, says Todd Rogers, a professor of public policy at Harvard’s Kennedy School.

But there, he has found something of a counter-strategy. Flakers, like bad poker players, have tells. And he’s found that pollsters can be surprisingly good at picking these up from subtle cues revealed in a short phone conversation.