Unfortunately, time is needed to gather resources, funding, and survey instruments for polling [6].
Polls are imperfect instruments, especially at a time when even the best pollsters struggle to get more than 10 percent of Americans to return their calls.
"Phone polling as an instrument of political measurement is probably on its way out," he said.
For his part, Dr. Gallup argued, in one of his six books, "The Sophisticated Poll Watcher's Guide," which came out in 1972: "Polling is merely an instrument for gauging public opinion.
And even then, take the underlying vote estimates with big grains of salt….as tools to predict the outcome of close races just before the polls close, they are blunt instruments at best.
The soaring language of the Warren Court, which had dismantled so many instruments of discrimination — segregation, poll taxes, anti-miscegenation laws — has now been wielded to strike down laws and programs that continue to deal with their vestiges.
T.V. has provided candidates with a powerful instrument for telling the public what the public opinion polls revealed that it already thinks.
Polls showed that younger and middle-aged voters were comfortable with individual retirement instruments like 401(k) programs.
