i believe in the principle of one person one vote, that way if it's in the general election, you have cast your vote, opinion, choice for that one candidate, have had your say. If you sample a small amount of folk, and how do the pollsters choose them? how do you know that is the opinion overall. That is what i am trying to work through.
this is from that article, piece that lazygun posted
It is an old rule that the smaller the sample the greater the chances of error. Nevertheless, the size of the sample is not as, important to experienced pollers as the representativeness of the sample. A large sample, carelessly chosen, can lead to greater error than a properly selected small sample. The main question to the poller is, therefore: Is the sample a good cross section of the population? In other words, does the sample include the various types of people who make up the whole