I agree with you that voters shouldn't care, but you'd be incorrect in suggesting that they don't. Most people avoid conflict in their lives. You can avoid more conflict by adopting more popular (or more socially acceptable) viewpoints. Many people are influenced by this consideration. As a result, many people will be influenced as to which candidate to support by their understanding as to who is the more popular candidate. The media has a role in this understanding. Many voters will not view poll numbers for themselves, or scrutinize the aspects of polls which impact upon their reliability. They will trust media to have done that for them.
CNN has a paltry audience, not worth worrying about on its own. However, the totality of the MSM has an enormous audience. There is ample reason for the MSM to be distrustful of the polls this election, whether individually or on even on aggregate. However, on my observation, they are not expressing any such uncertainty in claiming that polling (in aggregate, or by selecting specific polls) shows Clinton well ahead, and that this election is over.
Oldjones, we have sometimes found reasonable ground to agree upon. Are you unable to agree that it may matter to this election (either to influence votes, or turnout) who the media claims is going to win?
So what? If the media said "…the polls indicate Trump is ahead", his campaign should be disparaged as Clinton's is here, because the media shouldn't predict someone is going to win? What sort of nonsense world are you people imagining where speech is free but no one must use their free speech to predict the winner of a free election? What nonsense!
Indeed, it may matter to this election, to all elections or to no elections what someone — media or not — said to someone else. SO WHAT! That's how democracy works. We talk. Some of us better than others, Some of us more truthfully, some of us more self-interestedly. SO WHAT!! It's up to each and every one of us to decide how we'll vote, whatever we heard or didn't hear, believed or didn't.
This thread's full of posts that reveal The posters' utter confusion about the role of media, parties, statistics, and the polling companies they hire to come up with them. Which has only encouraged the ignorant to pronounce others crooked and criminal without a shred of actual evidence. I commend you on your self assigned task, but you're missing the proper target audience.
As for your point about effects of polls on voters (other than we two of course, and I do sometimes worry about you): Like the effect of advertising, it's largely unproven by any real studies and evidence. The reality is that we have to believe in it because, …, well, … because talking up our product and asking people how many of them like it, is all we
can do.
However the hard-won secret ballot allows anyone to be a sociably agreeable with everyone else as they'd like and still vote as they believe for themselves. Unless you're proposing a Bureau of Approved Polls we're kinda stuck with what ever polls whoever wants to pay for, being reported by whatever media you choose to buy. And they'll always be wrong, and not worth discussing until the Only True Poll results are in.
Worst of all possible systems. Except for any I've seen anyone propose here, amongst the bitching about poll numbers they don't just like. Oops! No one has yet proposed any better. Not better polls, better media or better systems.
Let the bitching resume.