"The idea that polls should not be allowed is ridiculous."

Is that right? Well, tough. Your entire party-based system is considerably more ridiculous.

I see nothing useful whatsoever that polls contribute to an election process, I see many ways that they damage it.

They are simply an attempt to sway large numbers of people into abandoning a ticket (whichever one) in a lemming-like rush to avoid voting for "a loser". This is a form of manipulation that should not be brought into an election process.

Politicians would undoubtedly continue to privately conduct polls if the polls were not published in the media, because it would give them an ongoing guide as to whether they needed to change their campaigning tactics or their platform. That would be fine with me, but I see no reason why polling results should be publicly announced day by day in the media. It is an attempt to influence people and it has no legitimate justification, because it's not based on any legitimate policy or position.

What the hell does MY choice of how to vote or YOUR choice of how to vote have to do with how a whole bunch of other people say they are going to vote TODAY? It doesn't. And it shouldn't. We should not cast our votes under the influence of polls, we should cast our votes purely on the basis of the candidates and the policies we believe in (if we can find any such...). Let the politicians worry about the polls, let they conduct them quietly and privately without media coverage, let them look privately at the results, adjust their own campaigns accordingly, leave the public alone to make up their own minds who to vote for without this kind of daily crass manipulation through announcing polling results.