The following opinion, by member Susan Breece, was published in the ‘Sun-Sentinel’ Dec.16.
Besides the obvious financial benefit to polling companies who sample a minute number of consumers then sell findings to an interested entity, what is the true purpose of polls, especially as related to elections?
Could it be intent to influence/skew voter thinking over a long lead time, so that voter response at the ballot box is a reflex to “what everyone else is doing” rather than an informed choice based on research and fact?
Regardless of sampling criteria, pollsters come nowhere near querying 100 percent of possible pollees. Even the biggest poll of all — the election itself — doesn’t come close to indicating the opinion of 100 percent of all people eligible to have one.
Especially today, rife with fake everything — tools of our enemies — polls are just as subject to falsehood as stories about a favorite movie star.
Exit polls published before a given election has closed are equally dangerous to election integrity. Let the pollsters ask about detergent and toothpaste as long as anyone pays them. But ban them forever from involvement in — influencing — any American election.
Susan Breece, Boca Raton
