...or refuses to be polled.
Either way, silent or refusing to be polled, we are LEGION and we will roll over them like an avenging tsunami election day.
In 1936, Alf Landon polled well ahead of FDR, based on responses gotten from telephone subscribers and automobile registrations. This was breezily aired about by Literary Digest, and it looked like Landon would get some 57% of the popular vote.
Shock and awe as FDR was re-elected on the largest Electoral College vote margin in US history up to then. What happened is that the vast underclass then was NEVER asked what they thought of the current situation at that time, and they went resoundingly for Roosevelt, as the devil they knew in contrast to the devil they did not.
It turned out that most of this underclass, the persons kicked out of their homes and largely jobless, had no phones and few automobiles, and were not available for the polls collected. It may also be noted that VERY few African Americans actually voted then, either, and the vast majority of those who did vote supported Landon. But again, not a significant part of the electorate in 1936.
Today with the advent of cell phones, and the fact that there proportionately far fewer homes with land lines today compared to 2000, phone polling has once again become highly erratic.
If people even respond any more. Pollsters regularly get told to perform a biologically impossible act.
Or gives false answers when polled. When robo polled on the national election, my youngest bother identifies himself as an undecided black female. Under the Reuters system, that would mean that he gets attributed as being for Hillary. Why does my brother do this, with great diligence no less? “To screw with them.”