And yet most pollsters still use "registered voters" as their sample.
And the talking heads, and many here on FR, sight them as valid proof of whatever point they are pushing that day.
He who pays the piper calls the tune.Pollsters are not stupid. If a pollster returns results his client does not want to hear, the client will get another pollster.
The only time polls get accurate is at election time. The pollsters dare not give fudged data right before an election, or the election will prove them wrong.
You will often notice that pollsters tell us that the voters changed or made up their minds in the final days or hours before the election. That is not my experience. But Pollsters have to explain how they had it going one way and then have results change a lot in the final days to conform with the acutal votes.
The internal polls of candidates do not lie. They are also rarely made public. But if you watch what candidates do... it will often tell you what is going on.For example it had been a gentlemans agreement for the 140 years prior to 2000 that presidential candidates do not campaign on election day. Al Gore broke that tradidtion and campaigned on election day 2000. Do you know where he campaigned? You guessed it South Florida.
Everyone in the media knew what Gore did on election day 2000 and why he did it. Yet they were quick to give the state to Gore when they knew quite well it was a state trending Bush and very very close.