Here's why we can't count on polls to deliver the truth ahead of the election

When it came to the polls in the 2016 election, they actually proved to be remarkably on-point nationally. Hillary Clinton did win by more than 3 million votes, but the state polls didn't quite capture how close things were in states like Michigan. So, as the election nears in 2020, can the polls be trusted this time around?

Axios explores the question in a new report trying to avoid false expectations while Trump is promising a "rigged" result he refuses to accept.

"Many polls done so far this year in swing states like Florida, Michigan and Wisconsin, are 'alarmingly' not improved," Axios cited Courtney Kennedy, director of survey research at Pew Research Center. "The structural challenges we had in 2016 are still with us."

Due to the coronavirus, the polling may not firmly capture the willingness of older voters to stand in line for more than four hours to cast a vote. Since there is a shortage of poll workers, polling locations are being cut all over the country, many in Democratic strongholds. With the war on the U.S. Postal Service, it's unknown if ballots will even be delivered on time now that sorting machines offline and ballots no longer considered "first-class mail."

"For people whose business is to draw a line between asking people who they will vote for and what actually happens, there’s no statistical modeling that can adjust for any one of these, let alone all of them at once," said Axios.

There's also a fear that the huge influx of mail-in-ballots could make the counting take longer, with a days-long pause before finding out who won.

"We’re still in early innings," Axios also explained. "Conventions are wrapped up and the campaigns seem like they’ve been going on for years, but there’s a long way to go."

Anything can happen in the month leading to the election. Last time around, former FBI Director James Comey announced he was reopening the investigation into Hillary Clinton's email server, despite nothing coming from it. WikiLeaks also used the final month of the election to drop all of the hacked emails from Clinton's campaign chief.

“If ever there has been a year where unforeseeable things can happen, it’s 2020,” Axios quoted Iowa pollster J. Ann Selzer. “Anybody that’s not wary this time is kind of kidding themselves.”

One of the other misunderstandings from voters comes in looking at national polls. While former Vice President Joe Biden may be the favorite in the country, that doesn't mean that he'll win because the popular vote doesn't elect a president, as both Clinton and Al Gore found out.

"Pollsters agree that this year there are fewer undecided voters than recent elections," Axios closed. "But for some of the most important public opinion gold — swing state voters — there’s the least confidence in getting an accurate reading."

Read the full report.