Comments on: Information and elections

By: Mike Titelbaum

Mike Titelbaum — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 01:15:56 +0000

Not only are we having an election party here in Canberra, Australia, but many non-Americans I know are almost as obsessed with the election (scanning news and polling sites constantly) as I am!

By: Anita Hendersen

Anita Hendersen — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 22:57:24 +0000

Ha, I remember in 2004 on election day one of the Crooked Timber bloggers confidently stating that Kerry would win. I was amazed that anyone would think that so late in the campaign when it was apparent Bush was in for re-election.

To your point, yes, the wealth of polling data and analysis on the web is much better than it was in previous elections, providing much fun for stat geeks and political junkies. The internet is awesome.

By: Maracel

Maracel — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 18:29:52 +0000

As a Californian I expect it will pretty much be over by 4:30 pm west coast time. Pennsylvania, Virginia will probably call early, followed by Ohio and Florida. If these states don’t call early, then it will be a closer election than expected. Out here we’re all holding our breath.

By: Ben Alpers

Ben Alpers — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 06:38:06 +0000

Couple thoughts... 1) I know that this is probably a losing battle, but fivethirtyeight.com is a definitely Democratic website. There's nothing remotely "leftwing" about Nate Silver. 2) Unlike fivethirthyeight and pollster.com, RealClearPolitics does not publish any set of standards explaining how they select and weigh polls. This has led to charges of cherrypicking from rival sites.

By: Matt McIrvin

Matt McIrvin — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 05:59:14 +0000

RealClearPolitics, electoral-vote.com, and Sam Wang’s site election.princeton.edu were all already running in 2004, as were some other aggregators. I think they all nailed the final electoral map pretty closely except for Wisconsin, which was generally called for Bush (Kerry took it by a hair). Wang made the mistake of tweaking his maps with the assumption that undecideds would break strongly for Kerry, but he also posted untweaked maps, and he learned his lesson from the experience.

For some reason, sites of this sort seem to be getting a lot more mainstream attention now.

By: Andrew

Andrew — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 01:52:33 +0000

@1
Yeah we’re doing a Fox News drinking game at my election party in Tokyo. It’s going to be pretty ridiculous, because most of the predictions are going to be coming in pretty early in the morning, 9, 10, 11. We’ll likely all be completely pissed by noon.

I guess in London you’ll be up pretty late to get those West Coast states.

By: Emma

Emma — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 22:18:58 +0000

The other effect is to make it quite clear how hopeless the mainstream media coverage of US elections is, in other countries. Where once I would have relied on the Sydney Morning Herald to find out what was happening, now I can see that the Herald’s coverage is partial, inept and following an obvious script, just as if the reporters were hanging out in Washington bars with other reporters. I can do more research on the web in 5 mins than the US politics correspondent seems to have done. Which is disappointing.
I’m taking the day off on Wednesday, Australian time, to watch the results.
Emma

By: David in NY

David in NY — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 21:40:39 +0000

Hope it’s over between 11 p.m. and midnight your time Naadir, as the polls close in Indiana, Florida and Virginia. If Obama takes any of these, McCain’s goose is cooked, as we say.

By: Davy

Davy — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 21:39:04 +0000

I think with the world in such dire straits people are also heavily invested in seeing whether or not the U.S. is going to shape up and regain some of its leadership position.

By: Naadir Jeewa

Naadir Jeewa — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 21:05:41 +0000

It certainly is more fun for the rest of us. We’re having an election night party in East London.

Will be following Fox News for the laughs…