Are you influenced by public opinion polls? Are you sure?

During election campaigns there seems to be a new poll published daily. In Canada’s federal election this week the numbers don’t seem to mean that much as the leading parties are so close. Still, the polls keep coming. And we all check the numbers.

People say they aren’t influenced by the publicity surrounding the polls but how do they know? We all want to go with the winner. How do you conduct an experiment to see how influential those voter snapshots are? 

You could ban the publication of polling data during an election period. Except that wouldn’t work – it would be an unjustified restriction on free speech. The ban would never survive a constitutional challenge. 

I’d still like to see it though. Just to see what it was like.

What about you?