14 - Conclusion

Summary

This is a brief conclusion arguing that the direction forward is clear, even if the path is not. The time for assuming away problems is past. We should begin with a paradigm that reflects all the ways that polling can go wrong and then identify, model, and measure all the sources of bias, not just the ones that are easy to fix. Much work remains to be done, though, as these new models and data sources will require much evaluation and development theoretically, empirically, and practically. The payoff will be that survey researchers will be able to remain true to their aspirations of using information about a small number of people to understand the realities about many people, even as it gets harder and hear from anyone, let alone the random samples that our previous theory relied on.