The Press: Polls on Trial

Last week the poll takers of the nation were on trial and knew it. Four years ago, the practice of taking straw votes went out with a crash. The greatest of all straw polls, the Literary Digest's, took 2,376,523 straw votes by mail, and not only backed the wrong candidate but erred by 19% on the popular vote. It was a catastrophe to the Digest. It also left most of the pollsters who sprang up in the Digest's wake trembling in their boots for fear the Digest's fate might overtake them.

Some of them...

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