They get information.
The classic standard is that with a 1500 response (that is all of those 1500 have answered EVERY question and a goodly number have been called back to verify their responses) you have a plus or minus three percent margin of error in the best possible case scenario. That means that your sample actually represents the population you intend (presumably, but not necessarily ‘likely”, or “undecided” voters’. The math behind that is pretty provable and verifiable; if you have a hundred thousand, or a million or a billion jelly beans *IF* your sample is representative of the whole THEN a sample of 1500 is the point of diminishing returns, you would have to have a MUCH larger survey to gain even a fraction of accuracy... Since a ‘perfect’ sample is pretty much impossible to take (or more accurately it is impossible to KNOW you’ve taken a perfect sample), interpreting the data, gauging it’s accuracy well enough to know where to throw the money, that is the skill. That’s what makes folks like Rove, Atwater, Morris and such the influences they are or were (actually it was as often wonks on their staffs).
By definition, if they got “no information” from them, they were not part of the sample. IF they got incomplete demographic data then there are the techniques I’ve alluded to above to turn the noise and static into the daily racing form :-)
The people who get paid the big bucks are the ones who can extract the information from the noise.
Your post is a classic example of the experts fallacy.
You begin with a few cursory sentences about the fantastically complex subject of statistical sampling theory. This establishes you as an expert. Do no argue with me, I will bury you with my expertise.
Next you assert the expertise of the pollsters.
“The people who get paid the big bucks are the ones who can extract the information from the noise.”
You can’t “independently prove and verify” how they “extract the information from the noise” because unlike scientific sampling theory how they do it is a proprietary secret. But they are experts so we must assume they know what they are doing.
As further proof that their work is valid you give us the fact that highly paid campaign consultants - Rove, Atwater, Morris and such - spend vast amounts of money on poling and they wouldn’t do that if they didn’t get value for their money. Take that for fact since they are experts in their field.
Well here’s a statistic that is provable and verifiable about Rove, Atwater, Morris and such - in every election 50% of them fail to get their candidates elected, despite all the cash they waste on polling.
Thank you, I will do my own thinking about the subject.