Pre-polls and projected winners before the polls open. Is it all a psychological ploy to sway the vote?

Polls are designed for candidates and the public to figure out how they are doing. When you are organizing get out the vote efforts, you need to know exactly what voter profile you need to get to the polls. Last minute information is very valuable.

I believe there is some evidence that polls do affect the turnout—both positively and negatively, depending which side of the fight you are on.

Every candidate uses its polls for multiple purposes. They want to identify preferences, and motivate their supporters to vote and, if they can demotivate the opponents voters. It’s speech. It’s free. Caveat Emptor.

As to predictions… well, the information is out there if you want it. There’s no way you can keep that stuff under wraps. Someone is going to leak it. Anyway, even if it were desirable (and I think it isn’t), there would be no point in curbing free speech. Of course, since it is speech, we don’t want to curb it, anyway.

It depends on which poll you follow. There are several that have a better reputation for using a true cross section.

Yes and no (and yes). Projections from the east coast definitely influenced voter turnout on the west coast for one of the presidential elections (maybe Reagan, I don’t remember).

All of this 50% business also makes it easier to flip votes and sway an election one way or the other.

Pre polling, though, can otherwise be an effective tool to sniff out vote fraud, such as a recent election in the Ukraine. (You’ll have to Google it.) If votes stray significantly from scientific polls, then it’s a good indicator of fraud.

I don’t think it’s designed to discourage voting. It’s designed to encourage stupidity by filling up airwaves with useless poll projections. (Accurate… but useless).

It then causes politically oriented people to waste their minds debating poll statistics instead of ideas.

@kevbo “If votes stray significantly from scientific polls, then it’s a good indicator of fraud.” That and exit polls in the last Bush election showed that there was widespread fraud. In fact, the Supreme Court granted (unconstitutionally) the presidency to Bush.

The only reason Obama won was that it was overwhelmingly in his favor. I am sure that if the election was close, the numbers would have been manipulated for his loss. Additionally the Republicans didn’t want to win and preside over the disaster they caused. It was much better for them to allow the democrats to take the blame and come back in Mid-term and in the 2012 elections to act as saviours to the country. We lost democracy when voting machines went paperless and I don’t expect to get it back within my lifetime.