The possibility of electoral chicanery designed to create a disconnect between the will of the American people and the occupant of the White House in January makes it more important than usual that we develop strong evidence about voter preferences parallel to the election. (1/6)

Having a clear understanding of voter preferences immediately prior to the election would help identify vote suppression, counting irregularities, etc. And would help assess the plausibility of a candidate’s premature declaration of victory. (2/6)

In order to have that clear understanding, you need really high-quality polling. And in order to maximize faith in it, you’d want it conducted/sponsored/endorsed on the front end by a wide range of experts. (3/6)

Pew, Gallup (etc etc), major universities, major news orgs, prominent pollsters from both parties, etc etc should form a coalition to conduct a really big (with large samples in every state) really high-quality pre-election poll. (4/6)

No poll can ever be perfect or and the result of such a poll shouldn’t replace an election for purposes of determining a winner. But election results that diverge significantly from the poll results could help identify potential vote-count problems for examination. (5/6)

And such a poll would be a useful reality check on a candidate’s premature declaration of victory. And in assessing the intent and will of the American people, which could be of tremendous value in a post-election power struggle.

(6/6)

PS: the broader point here is that the next 3-5 months are going to be difficult and dangerous in unprecedented ways, and institutions should be thinking deeply and aggressively about what they can do to help ensure a democratic outcome.

See also: https://twitter.com/jamisonfoser/status/1294316052218646528

Every university, think tank, news company, library, zoo, and civic organization in America should be having twice-weekly meetings to figure out what role they will play in the preservation of democracy over the next 5 months.

More like this please https://twitter.com/BillPascrell/status/1294398689142865925