Has there been any systematic research on the opinion polls in which each voter can see the accumulated result up to the time of his/her vote? Many online polls show the live result, and new voters may be influenced from the result. I'm curious about the effect of the influence.
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There is some research in betting markets which are a form of opinion poll with money attached. See Soccermatics by David Sumpter, p229. The wisdom of crowds polling is based on each individual making an independent choice. If they see what others have done then the "wisdom" of the crowd is lost - they become a dumb herd (eg Brexit, Trump election). P226 of the book gives details of Andrew King's, Royal Veterinary College experiments (Biology Letters 8(2): 197-200) with guessing number of sweets in a jar but telling later entrants the mean of the guesses to date. There were 751 sweets, but earlier mean guesses were 1396 (the median value was spot on at 751). Later guessers thought 1396 too high but took note and only lowered their guesses to a mean of 1000.
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$\begingroup$ Why is Brexit and Trump election an example of "they see what others have done"? As far as I know, in the referendum and elections, the partial results were not published. $\endgroup$ Dec 10, 2023 at 11:43