What is the supposed purpose of pre-election popularity polls today?
Is it just to entertain the voters?
Is it just to satisfy their curiosity?
Is it to help them make decisions about whom to vote for?
If it is the latter, do those who commission and report these polls realize that they are engaged in a process of self-fulfilling prophecy?
I think that they know that by drumming into the public day by day week by week and month by month which two candidates are the viable ones, that they are taking advantage of a weakness of our plurality system: the multiplicity of local equilibria.
Under Approval or Condorcet voters can safely vote their consciences without worrying too much about the popularity of the candidates.
Here's an idea:
Have the first election under Condorcet to get things started right. Then after that either continue Condorcet if the voters like it, or fall back to Approval, which will have the results of an honest election to inform the voters.
Kind of like using Runge-Kutta to get a predictor/corrector method started in numerical solutions of initial value problems.
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