Pollsters’ defensive regrouping by claiming the race is too close to call may protect their reputation, but it creates another danger: The confusion makes it easier for election deniers to challenge the result.

Could pollsters make mistakes again this year? Let’s count the paths. There is something called non-response bias, in which pollsters attempt to adjust for the fact that they are not reaching enough respondents in a particular demographic group – for example, voters under 40 years – overweighting the few answers under 40 that they get. There is “shy voter” syndrome, in which voters who perceive a social stigma in their choice simply lie to pollsters. Or maybe it’s the opposite: voters stand up to shocking pollsters with their outraged opinions, but remain sober in the voting booth. Or another possibility: Voters who don’t want to appear racist or sexist will say good things about Harris when they actually lean toward Trump.

There could be a hidden women’s vote, where moderate or Republican women repulsed by Trump vote secretly for Harris. They won’t even tell their husband who they’re voting for, let alone a stranger on the phone. There is also “recency bias,” where pollsters change data to reflect respondents’ behavior in recent elections. But voters may misremember their vote and — like the millions of baby boomers who insist they were at Woodstock — simply pretend they were on the winning side.

Polling professionals react to these distortions by increasingly resorting to splitting hairs, massaging the data to account for this or that eventuality. Many have adopted Silver’s innovation of aggregating polling averages from several different sources, presumably filtering out statistical “noise.” But now there’s a new problem: Partisan polls intentionally designed to promote a candidate are nudge in the mixture, skewing the averages. All these variables — and let’s not forget the weather — mean that polls, as Rick Perlstein points out, recently wrote in The American Prospect, “nothing is more scientific than throwing a dartboard with a blindfold on.”

And should I add the complicity of the media who polluted the electoral dialogue with breathtaking coverage of the polls, as if it were something real?

All this makes you dizzy. THE Youth survey Harvard University’s surveys of voters under 30 revealed results for male voters, finding a 17-point margin in favor of Harris among young men who say they will definitely vote. But among young men who are less confident about voting, the survey finds an 11-point preference for Trump, an increase of 28 points. As always, the only ballot that matters is the one voters show up for on Election Day.

As a species, humans hate uncertainty. Right now, we’re either stuffing ourselves with Halloween candy or practicing deep breathing to ease the anxiety of not knowing. This explains why we cling to polls even though we constantly allow ourselves to be fooled by them.

But here’s the thing: every poll, by its nature, speculates on something that is this doesn’t actually happen. Dwelling on an unknown future is the antithesis of living in the present moment.

So it’s better to wait a few days (or maybe weeks). Polls attempt to give confidence in a result. But like most trust games, you risk being scammed.

Renée Loth’s column appears regularly in the Globe.