The Votemaster Is...Andrew Tanenbaum

A reader writes: " www.electoral-vote.com, a site of daily updated maps of the US electoral college based on a number of polls is probably a site that the policially inclined check daily. Well, it has been revealed that the person behind the site, AKA the votemaster, is none other than Andrew Tanenbaum, noted author of numerous CS books." He's also known for a little discussion with someone named Linus Torvalds.

Comments

Worldwide results

[ControlFreal]

From the other side of the ponds, the story is quite different. About 113,000 people cast their vote here. In this worldwide shadow election: Kerry wins (77.1%), and Bush comes second at 9.1%. Surprisingly, support for Bush is largest in the Middle East (many votes from Israel?). Some hilarious (frightening...) responses by US citizens to this shadow-election can be found here.

Another initiative (about 20,000 people) is here. Results will be published later today.

It's logical that the results are different than those in the US. However, one wonders how much of a hint some (some) US citizens (especially those posting very harsh comments in response to these shadow-elections) need to realize that it's not just the US that matters in this world.

Mod me flamebait, if you wish. But before you do, consider: it's not me delivering the criticism, it's 113,000 people (on behalf of a much larger group). I'm just the messenger boy here...

Re:Worldwide results

[wizbit]

I think that the rest of the world's hatred for him only proves their loopiness.

I disagree. If you'd read Tanenbaum's assessment of European attitudes of Bush (and his remarkably refreshing attitude towards American leadership in the world) you'd find that, while people may loathe Bush, they are not "loopy," they simply see American power as resting in the hands of an international bully.

I for one will be voting for Kerry not because we are unpopular, but because I desire to see America lead the world again, which we cannot do under the current administration.

Re:Worldwide results

[wobblie]

To sum up:

"Ich bin ein Berliner!" JFK 1963
"I'm a Napoleon!" GWB, USS Lincoln, 2003

Both Berliners and Napoleons are tasty, delicate pastries.

Re:Worldwide results

[Leftist Troll]

But why is the rest of the world against [the Iraq war]?
Because to them, this war is basically the United States saying, "we have the right to invade anyone anytime for any reason, and there's nothing anyone can do about it". For some reason other countries don't take that well ;)
This administration is thumbing its nose at the principals behind post-WWII international law (even UN secretary general Kofi Annon, usualy quite subserviant to the US, has called the war "illegal").

Specifically the ones who do the inevitably dirty work of wars, exporting security to the rest of the world.
What an Orwellian phrasing. "Exporting security"... that's quite a lot of security we've exported to Vietnam, Nicaragua, and Iraq. Look at what great shape those countries are in now.

I hope that the Europeans discover independent thought one of these days and stop letting themselves be culturally dominated by American media and American corporations.
Amen. Lets hope Americans do the same and stop letting ourselves be dominated by corporations and their media outlets.

Re:Worldwide results

[Troed]

Check the trade balance. It's the US that needs to trade with the rest of the world to survive - not the other way around.

Re:Worldwide results

[Experiment 626]

So what? If you took a Slashdot poll of who the next CEO of Microsoft should be, you might find widespread support for some guy who would give away all their IP and then disband the company. If you took a poll of the shareholders, they would have a different opinion. Why would anyone need to poll 113,000 people to realize that third parties have different agendas than the people doing the voting?

Even if foreigners are well-informed about the platforms of the candidates in a different country, why would they care about things like domestic issues or tax policy? Such people would have no interest in picking the candidate who would act in the best interest of Americans, but rather who would do things that were best for people in the poll-respondant's part of the world, regardless of whether the policies were good or bad for the candidate's own constituency. People in India want might more outsourcing, people in Japan might want America to run a bigger trade deficit with them, others might want to take America down a notch or two economically, politically, militarily, and so on.

Consider this interpretation of your data: people who actually have to live under the administration they are voting for are many times more likely to support Bush than are poll respondants who are foist a candidate upon someone else's country from afar.

Re:Worldwide results

[C.Batt]

Your government misrepresented its reasons for going to war. In fact, the correct expression is, "it LIED".

Saddam Hussein has/had no proven connections to Al Quaeda. No secret relationships with Osama Bin Laden. No Weapons of Mass destruction. No ability to threaten America or American citizens (except those who wandered into Iraq) directly.

Was he a "bad man"? Oh, probably. But so is Kim Jong Il.

The reason why there is so much anti-american sentiment is that America (through its governmental representation) is so anti-global-community. So blatantly false in its motivations. And has proven to be very untrustworthy.

The war was NEVER about terror, Weapons of Mass Destruction, regime change, or making the world a safer place. It was always about securing oil resources and securing a military foothold in the middle-east.

The rest of the world knew this immediately (except for the UK government). We didn't swallow anything hook-line-and-sinker. We called a spade a spade, and are frankly quite disgusted by the lack of respect that America has demonstrated to the international community.

At the very least, if the American government would've said, "uh, we're going into Iraq because the instability of the area threatens our Oil supply." At least they would've been honest.

Are Americans evil? Hardly. My wife is American. I visit my inlaws regularly and they are fantastic folks. So are all of the people I've met on a face-to-face basis. However, the American government is NOT a good representation of its people. All that the rest of the world is saying with these fake votes and inconsequential opinion polls is that we'd like your government to give you the international representation that the good people of America deserve.

Re:Worldwide results

[Anonymous Coward]

Tough. It's our vote, not yours. I'm getting really sick of these arrogant Europeans thinking their oppinion in our election even matters. We (by and large) hate the French president, do they care? Are they changing their votes because of it?

You're right, it is your vote, and it's perfectly justifiable for Americans to consider their election a purely internal matter for Americans to deal with.

Oddly enough though, whenever another country has elected a leader that Americans happened to dislike, you always went in and removed them. It didn't matter if it required an invasion (too many to list), a kidnapping (Panama), an assassination (Cuba), or a fake coup (Guatemala), you supported it.

And to think all we're doing to express our dislike of your leaders is letting you know about it. Oh the horror! But you're getting pissed that we would dare interfere in your election by *talking about it*? What a fucking hypocrite.

Re:Worldwide results

[swillden]

I'm getting really sick of these arrogant Europeans thinking their oppinion in our election even matters.

Let's make this simple:

Their opinions of our nation affect our individual lives. Sometimes the effects aren't obvious, but the effects are there. Therefore, we have a reason to care about what they think of us.

Their opinions of our nation are largely determined by our nation's actions in the area of foreign relations. Foreign relations is handled by the State Department under the direction of the President. Ergo, their opinion of us is principally affected by our President. Therefore, we have a reason to care about what they think of our President.

Their opinion matters. It's not decisive by any means, but to the extent that our interests and theirs coincide, we should at least give consideration to what they have to say.

Beyond that, sometimes it's good to get a point of view that is at a remove from the problem. Marriage counselors aren't necessarily all that smart, but they are fairly effective because they're outside of the problem. Sometimes I think the US citizens and the US government could use some intervention to help us work out our differences :-)

Re:Worldwide results

[Alsee]

Why exactly do "[The US citizens] (by and large) hate the French president"?

It's just the fanatical Bush supporters, the ones who live in an entirely different reality filled with entirely different "facts". They generally beleive that we did find WMD's in Iiiiqar, or that there was an active WMD program, that Iraq was involved in the 9/11 attack or otherwise supported Al Quaeda, who think we still have the vitally needed international support for hunting down terrorists across the globe.

And based on that view of reality, obviously the French are aiding the terrorists. They are all obviously currupted by the Oil for Food program. And most of all they simply want to see a weak America so they can puff-up their own relative importance and strength.

But as I said, that's the Bush supporters. The rest of us may have chucked at the "Freedom Fries" stuff, and laughed at the French-surrendering jokes, but we in no way hate the French or your President.

I'd say 20% of the problem is our administration intentionally deceiving the public, 20% of the problem is idiot people beleiving the administration's baloney, but the majority of the problem is that our media has rolled over for the Whitehouse. Immediately after 9/11 attack we all naturally came together in unity and support. After the attack any critisism of the country or of the president was simply UnAmerican and Not Done. While the effect has faded, it is not gone. The press has been reluctant to carry news that was critical of the US or of the President. When they do critique the administration and their statements and their 'evidence', the media tends to softpeddle that critique.

Half of the country is outraged at the lies the administration has foisted on us and on the world, and the other half still beleives those lies. It is human nature that people do not like to find out that they are wrong - that they have been fooled. Bush supporters are emotionally invested in not accepting evidence that they have been fooled, and that they have been supporting a war that most of them would have opposed had they known there were in fact no WMD's and no WMD programs.

The people on each side have a very different view of reality. This election is increadibly polarized. A one or two percent shift in voting will throw the electorial college vote massively one way or the other. There seems to be good reason to believe that that major shift will be in Kerry's direction. And hopfully after a Kerry election the public will become more accurately informed.

-

Re:Worldwide results

[Alsee]

I'm getting really sick of these arrogant Europeans thinking their oppinion in our election even matters.

You are shortsighted and and dooming our efforts to defend ourselfs against terrorist attack if you think overwhelming world oppinion is irrelevant.

The world - our staunchest allies - they all beleive that the US has been lying and that *WE* have become the rouge nation. I'd say the evidence is that they are right, but even if they are wrong, the fact is that they do beleive it. The fact is that they no longer trust us. The fact is that they no longer support our efforts to track and catch or kill terrorists.

How the hell are we supposted to find and catch or kill terrorists across the globe - even in nations that have been our staunchest allies - when we no longer have their public support and police support and intelligence support and their military support?

Bush has been increadibly damaging to our international relations. Bush has destroyed our capacity to find and catch and kill terrorist cells outside the country and planning attacks on us.

We are talking about Australia, and England, and Mexico, and Canada. And yes, France and Germany as well.

Bush is famous for saying "you're with us or you're against us". Well he got his wish, now the entire world is against us. How the hell are we supposed to keep out terrorists when even Canada and Mexico are against us?

-

Re:Worldwide results

[PMuse]

...whenever another country has elected a leader that Americans happened to dislike, you always went in and removed them.

Oddly enough, Jacques Chirac is still in office. ;)

Serious questions

[daveschroeder]

As I imagine the replies to this post will mostly be drooling fawning over Andrew Tanenbaum, much like the Jon Stewart/Crossfire article, I'd like to actually ask some meaningful questions. (And please note that I have great respect for Tanenbaum, but don't understand a couple of his central points, described below.)

Why does running a statistical analysis website that gathers information on polls and aggregates them into something quasi-meaningful "support" the Democratic candidate?

Yes, yes, I'm well aware that while incognito he had said on numerous occasions that he was a Kerry supporter, and a Democrat. But he himself says:

Why Did You Do This?

In a nutshell, because I want to be proud of America again.

Meaning that Kerry can somehow make him proud again. Ok, fine, but what does running electoral-vote.com have to do with that? The question "Why Did You Do This?" implies that he is "do"ing something to influence people to vote in a particular way, which I simply don't see that website doing. In fact, other than the admittedly editorial sections of the site, I have found the site to be remarkedly unbiased.

He then goes on, at length, describing/proving that the world "hates" Bush/the administration/etc. This comes as absolutely no surprise to me. However - and FORGET about "Bush" for a second - how does "hating" someone have any logical correlation with whether their positions or courses of action are appropriate or inappropriate? That would seem antithetical to the viewpoints of most progressive persons. That's a serious question, but I doubt I'll get any serious answers. And this is an important question, because the fact that so many abroad "hate" Bush, and somehow getting more Americans to understand that, is central to Tanenbaum's multitude of statements on the topic. Why does "hating" someone mean what they're doing is wrong? (I will concede that a leader of a nation being hated probably makes it vastly more difficult to do diplomatic work, but that is somewhat tangential to my core question.)

The rest of this post amounts to what are essentially footnotes on this topic, but I believe are critical to the discussion of the belief that Kerry can somehow to a better job.

So let's address these things. The world "hates" Bush, and Kerry can somehow not only fight terrorism more effectively, but will also bring respect back to the US.

Sen McCain said it best yesterday on Face the Nation:

"I also believe that President Bush has a vision and a view that the war on terror is not going to be over until we have some democracy in the Middle East, and I don't think he means by imposing that at the point of a bayonet. But I do believe that he's correct that the issue of radical Islamic extremism is not going away until those countries have some kind of freedom and democracy, and I think that's his long-term goal."

Now, before you start spitting and sputtering about why the US is in "Iraq", then, well, reread that last statement. I'm not going to beat around the bush, as it were, any more: the US is in "Iraq" because it was an easy target in the region, period. Not because Saddam tried to kill Bush's "daddy", not because Bush is an angry dry drunk, and not because Cheney has a secret plan to line his pockets and that of Halliburton. This isn't a black-and-white zero-sum game where there is only one reason the US is in Iraq. There are myriad reasons. But the prime one is that it is part of a comprehensive, omnibus strategy to bring free or quasi-free governments to the region, in the hopes that more of the same will be encouraged, even as organizations like al-Qaeda redouble their recruiting efforts. This strategy will make things worse in the meantime. Possibly a lot worse. People will hate us. Including some people who will ultimately be protected by our actions (i.e., Europe).

Panislamic radicalism will not go away on its own

Re:Serious questions

[forgotten_my_nick]

Nice long post. I can sum it up easy. While he is clearly a Kerry supporter, the polls are non-biased and based on existing polls.

If you followed the site for some time you would see that. There is even a movie on the site to show you how much the polls have been swinging back and forwards.

If anything his site shows how pointless polls are, or that the undeceided voter is completly clueless and changes their mind every 5 minutes.

The only poll that really matters is tomorrows.

On another note "600,000 Iraqis". Can you quote a source for that? The only figure I can find is for displaced and not killed under sanctions. Also you should note that Saddam was grossly inflating the deaths (especially children deaths) in order to try and stop sanctions.

Re:Serious questions

[Minwee]

It was also posted two minutes after the story was released and contained over 2000 words.

The author not only read the headline but then proceded to type at 80 words per minute about topics which bear at best tangental relation to the topic at hand, which is that Andrew Tannenbaum has chosen to become involved in the electoral process by creating a site which monitors poll results.

I'm sure we'll be just as impressed when the same post shows up in response to the articles about Jon Stewart getting a manicure and the X-Box case mod that looks like a pumpkin.

Re:Serious questions

[Otter]

On the whole, I think Tanenbaum's piece was extremely well written and captures half of what I think is the best pro-Kerry case (or anti-Bush case, anyway) that can be made. (The other half being the deficit.) One thing struck me, though, and reminds me why I'm still leery of Kerry.

With a President Kerry, there is hope that other countries might contribute serious numbers of troops to help stabilize Iraq. With a second Bush administration they will just say: "You broke it, you fix it."

Hope? If Kerry wins it tomorrow, he'd better have those unnamed countries who supposedly have divisions of combat-ready troops they're eager to throw into the Iraq meat grinder. In two days, he's going to be on the hook to actually do all the stuff he's been promising.

Re:Serious questions

[benhocking]

how does "hating" someone have any logical correlation with whether their positions or courses of action are appropriate or inappropriate

I would guess that for many people the causal connection is backwards from what it appears you are suggesting. I.e., people "hate" Bush because they think that he his positions or courses of action are inappropriate. I personally don't hate him, but his positions and courses of action are why I'm voting against him. (Yes, I'm one of those many people who are voting against Bush more so than voting for Kerry. I've never been particularly partisan, but have always thought that respect for the environment was very important.)

the US is in "Iraq" because it was an easy target in the region, period [and to bring freedom, democracy] ... This isn't a black-and-white zero-sum game where there is only one reason the US is in Iraq.

I do believe that the reasons you've listed are primary reasons we attacked Iraq. I'm still undecided as to whether the reasons were sufficient. Saddam was an evil person, and only time will tell whether we've helped to secure freedom and democracy for Iraq or whether we've prepared the way for a worse dictator. (The US has a bad track record with this - think Khomeni, etc.) Nevertheless, I do think that there has been significant profiteering going on, (e.g., Haliburton), and that is very disturbing.

An interesting thought experiment is to imagine what would have happened had we invaded Germany and removed Hitler instead of ceding the Sudetenland to him. People probably would have said we were overstating the threat, etc. Was Saddam as big a threat as Hitler? (Remember, Hitler had no WMD's either,) Maybe not. But if we had removed Hitler when he invaded the Sudetenland, Hitler wouldn't have been as big a threat.

However, even if you believe we should have attacked Iraq, it is hard to believe that Bush followed a well thought out plan. I think a good diplomat could have bargained with France, Germany, and Russia and gotten them on board. I know that seems impossible now, but that's only because Bush has so alienated them that it's difficult for even them to imagine ever helping us.

Of course, my number one reason for voting against Bush is because of the number of policies he has enacted that have rolled back the environmental policies enacted under Carter, Reagan, Bush Sr., and Clinton.

Re:Serious questions

[Diabolical]

You have to ask yourself a very serious question: Is it the responsibility of the USA to bring democracy to the middle east?

The rest of the world sees differently. It is not our responsibility to tell another nation whether their way of life is correct or not. Hell, the US has big problems of their own without fighting wars in other countries.

It is this mentality that has brought the problems to the US in the first place, their constant meddling into the affairs of foreign countries. Hell, Saddam Hussain, Osama bin Laden and their cohorts are PRODUCTS of this meddling.

The rest of the world is looking very cautiously at the actions of the worlds most powerfull country. Just like children look cautiously to the school bully. Because that's how the USA is percieved right now. A bully running around pushing other people out of it's way to get what it wants..

Re:Serious questions

[bitingduck]

The only poll that really matters is tomorrows.

Absolutely.

I live in a non-swing state, so I've been volunteering for some get-out-the-vote-in-swing-states phone banking over the past couple days, and I no longer believe the polls. People in swing states are getting so many phone calls that many of them no longer answer the phone, they put messages on their machine saying if it's a political call please go away, they hang up right away, etc. They are extremely popular right now, and most of them seem to wish it would all go away.

On the few occasions that you do get a a live person, pretty frequently they say "this is my fifth call today, and someone just left the front door, would you please take us off your list". I apologize, and thank them, but because many of the groups aren't allowed to coordinate (or don't when they could), getting off one group's list doesn't help much.

The pollsters are calling all the same people, and probably having just as hard a time. They have to make a lot of corrections for systematic error, and I would suspect that the popularity of the swing state voters makes their correction factors less useful than in a more typical year.

Every once in a while you get someone who didn't know where to go to vote, or who needs help getting to the poll (which we help with). They make it worthwhile.

Re:Serious questions

[Glock27]

If anything his site shows how pointless polls are, or that the undeceided voter is completly clueless and changes their mind every 5 minutes.

I don't think polls are "pointless", but many people are very clueless about statistics (including, apparently, almost everyone in the media).

The talking heads on the news regularly talk about how a poll has "swung" one way or the other. For instance, this morning a poll came out that showed Bush up by 2% in the popular vote, 48% to 46%. The day before they were tied, I believe at 46% to 46%. Everyone involved talked about this as a real effect even though the margin of error (MoE) in the poll was 3%! Statistical variation completely explains those two results, it is quite possible that voter sentiment didn't change a bit!

Even beyond that, again by the nature of statistics polls are not as reliable as they are portrayed. The above mentioned MoE is only good for a 95% confidence level. In other words, there is a 5% chance that the reported numbers lay outside the MoE! So, it is best to view poll numbers with a very large grain of salt...

Re:Serious questions

[caudron]

how does "hating" someone have any logical correlation with whether their positions or courses of action are appropriate or inappropriate?

I could not agree more. Saying you hate someone tells me something about you, not about the person you hate. People have somehow forgotten that.

In this election, the word hate is being bandied about on both sides way too much. It's a dangerous word for what it implies about the American people.

the US is in "Iraq" because it was an easy target in the region, period. [...] it is part of a comprehensive, omnibus strategy to bring free or quasi-free governments to the region, in the hopes that more of the same will be encouraged, even as organizations like al-Qaeda redouble their recruiting efforts.

Again, I could not agree more. However, it's worth pointing out that this is not the reason given to us. If it were, and if the American people still stood behind the reasoning, then there would be a lot fewer protests. The ends do not ever justify the means. This administration forgot that when they lied to get us behind them on this plan as you've described it above. I voted for Bush in 2000. I will not vote for him in 2004 because he does not represent my views on how the American system of government works.

I was raised to believe in an America that was literally for the people and by the people. I was raised to believe, however foolishly, that if we give people the power to govern themselves and set their own direction, they will progress as a community. When you take away that power (by taking away our ability to make informed decisions) you circumvent the people's will in favor of the will of the ruling class. I don't need a governmental father-figure. I need a government that facilitates my part in the "American experiment".

I still believe in our forefather's experiment, even with all its failings and problems. We've made progress, and I expect we will continue to do so, but not so long as our leaders feel the need to patronize us with lies to facilitate their own goals and plans. They work for us. Let us never forgot that.

Re:Serious questions

[toddt]

Moderate, or reply? Moderate, or reply?

Reply it is.

Your comment makes some excellent points about foreign policy. Unfortunately, they're points that I feel you understand better than our president does.

Yes, it's key to stop Panislamic terrorism. It's critical to our safety, to peace around the world, to a solution to the mid-East crisis. All that.However, our methods have, to put it mildly, sucked a whole lotta ass. We did a really, really fantastic job of just bombing the shit out of Iraq. We shocked 'em. We awed 'em. And then we alienated 'em.

Instead of enlisting aid to actually secure the peace (rebuilding infrastructure, training Iraqi civil forces, promoting education), we chose to go it alone. Why? Because we'd be better at finding the WMDs without interference.

But at the point that we'd won the war, the WMDs didn't matter! They made a reasonable excuse for invading, but after the war, they were pointless.We'd already invaded, we were now stuck there, WMDs or no WMDs. They really only mattered for political points. At that point, to really do good in Iraq, we needed to make it perfectly clear that we were *not* there as conquerors, that we were *not* there to stay, and that we were *not* there to subdue Islam. We needed to make rebuilding Iraq a collaborative, global effort. We needed help. And Bush did NOTHING to seek it out. That's why it's our boys who are being killed, and it's a big part of why terrorist recuiting efforts are so incredibly successful in Iraq today. (Yes, I'm forgetting Poland. I know.)

And that's why Iraq is a debacle. That's a big part of why the rest of the world has come to really hate us. That's why I think voting for Bush is a mistake. Does Kerry have the solutions? Probably not. Certainly not all of them. But he's someone that the rest of the world doesn't actively despise, and that opens a lot of doors. We need help in Iraq if we're going to instill a workable democracy. Bush can't get it. Perhaps Kerry can.

And all that's to say nothing of Bush's really miserable record on the environment and science. Stifling stem cell research? Ignoring global warming? Overruling EPA guidelines on arsenic and air quality? Come on, now...

Todd

Re:Serious questions

[Dr. Manhattan]

the US is in "Iraq" because it was an easy target in the region, period

Easier than Afghanistan? If we'd stayed in Afghanistan, we'd have the same problem with insurgents moving in from other countries, but the native populace was actually sick of radical Islamic rule. Add in the fact that the infrastructure was already in a shambles (any improvement we could make would be dramatically better than the existing situation) and the reason it was in a shambles was because the Soviets had bombed the heck out of them... and the U.S. was the country that helped them. Not to mention the worldwide support for the invasion of Afghanistan.

The insurgents would have had a lot less native support, and we'd have had a lot more international support. If we'd ponied up the kind of dough there that we are currently hemorrhaging in Iraq, the place would be well on its way to a stable democracy.

Instead, we opened up a two-front war, in far less favorable conditions. The Bush administration vastly underestimated the amount and kind of resistance they'd face. Either that, or they flatout lied to rally support for it. Now that we're there, we have to finish the job, but it would be vastly easier with some international support for the operation, and that ain't gonna happen while Bush is in charge.

Re:Serious questions

[PMuse]

...the US is in "Iraq" because it was an easy target in the region, period. ...The US never went to Iraq for WMD (though we were justified in doing so for that reason alone, and probably expected to find quite a bit). Yes, in a way, it went for "oil".

Interesting. Now, consider that the Bush administration used the supposed presence of WMD as its primary justification of the invasion of Iraq to the nation and the world. Unless you dispute that (and it's pretty tough to dispute after reading the transcripts of President Bush's speeches between Jan 2003 and May 2003), then we come to an interesting conclusion. Apparently, you are less concerned about what a candidate/president _says_ his reasons are for doing a thing than you are concerned about what those reasons actually are. If you are correct that the U.S. invaded Iraq because it was a target of opportunity that would provide a platform for countering panislamic fundamentalism, then the WMD justification must have been both a smokescreen and a false statement.

I call this conclusion "interesting" because many who support Bush (perhaps not including you) spend much of their time spouting about "character" and "lies". It's refreshing to see a true pragmatist abandon that tired moral rhetoric and attempt to justify support of Bush's policies and actions based on facts, self-interest, and logic. I happen to disagree with your eventual conclusion (that Bush's methods are sound), but I admire the process by which you reach it.

Re:Serious questions

[Jeremi]

If Kerry wins it tomorrow, he'd better have those unnamed countries who supposedly have divisions of combat-ready troops they're eager to throw into the Iraq meat grinder. In two days, he's going to be on the hook to actually do all the stuff he's been promising

Actually, Kerry wouldn't take office until January, so he'd have at least a couple of months to come through with all that stuff.

Amazing

[fname]

I just read the votemaster description, and came over to Slashdot to submit the story. Funny. Despite being a small, self-run website, this is one I don't think Slashdot can even begin to take down (650,000 hits/day), although it's been the subject of DDoS attacks in the past. Being the computer wizard & all-around smart guy that Mr. Minix is, he's prepared for this by setting up backup site (just increment the number if it's down).

Mostly, I can wait to see how Linus is inspired by this project, writes his own version and then invites the global electoral community to help him make it even better. Take that! (j/k)

If anything, that crap is counterproductive

[HBI]

Most of the electoral votes are in the heartland of the US. If you told an average person on the streets that Europeans want to see Kerry elected, the instinctive response is to vote for Bush. If you don't think Karl Rove is using this to the Republicans' advantage, you're on crack.

We'll see the result tomorrow. I expect something decisive. No two elections are the same.

Re:If anything, that crap is counterproductive

[TopShelf]

Heartland? Like California, Texas, Florida and New York???

Quibble aside, the gist of your comment is correct. Americans have an instinctive tendency to go our own way, right or wrong. And most of the "up-for-grabs" electoral votes are in the midwest, like Michigan, Wisconsin, and Ohio.

Re:If anything, that crap is counterproductive

[HBI]

Don't take the Florida result in 2000 too much to heart. A lot of elections have post-election litigation associated with vote anomalies or recounts. It usually gets tossed out eventually because of no material effect on the result. It took 204 years and what, 51 elections for a situation like 2000 to present itself. It is not likely to happen again anytime soon.

Re:If anything, that crap is counterproductive

[SlashDread]

I, as a European, want to firmly say:

4 more years! We love Bush! All Europeans think Kerry is a lame-Americain! Boo Kerry!

Really!

"/Dread"

Re:If anything, that crap is counterproductive

[Skjellifetti]

Texas? WTF? In 2000, Gore won in only one county there. Brazos county, home of Texas A&M University, and a damn disproportionate conglomeration of college students.

Not true. Gore won several TX counties near the Mexican border.

Also, a better site than Tanenbaum's for predicting the winner is here. Sam Wang of Princeton University uses a statistical method for averaging all recent polls rather than rely on just the latest for his predictions.

Personally I'm predicting a blowout for Kerry. This is based for starters on Wang's data. 2nd, last night on MSNBC's Hardball, Chris Matthews said that the exit polls from early voting in Iowa had Kerry 11 points up. 30% of Iowa has already voted. There has also been a huge early turnout in Democratic areas in FL, NV, GA, and NC. 3rd, a recent Zogby poll of 18-29 year-olds with cell phones gave Kerry 55%, Bush 40%. Every other poll I've seen is based exclusively on land lines, so if the 18-29 year-olds vote this year (and granted, they usually do not), the polls could be way off. Finally, Karl Rove's strategy is based on getting some 4 million more Evangelical Christians to the polls than went in 2000. Problem is that the size of this group may be a myth. A devout Christian friend of mine invited me to a party Friday night with some of his church buddies. Not a group I normally hang out with, but I like being exposed to new ideas. Turns out this small sample favored Kerry over Bush by 50-40. A few were still very undecided (yes, even today there are still undecided voters in Ohio!). All of this leads me to believe that Kerry will clobber Bush.

Re:And unfortunately, a site that won't load today

[j0shwalk3r]

I have been a longtime reader of his site. He has mirrors up on electoral-vote2.com on up. I think 5 was the highest I last heard, but I'm sure he'll be putting up more after gettting a good slashdotting. And he thought the people trying to DoS him was bad...

Re:And unfortunately, a site that won't load today

[dejamatt]

He seemed to be expecting an attack the other day, and mirrored it at:

http://www.electoral-vote4.com/

http://www.electoral-vote3.com/

Re:Had to be non-US

[Anonymous Coward]

He's a US citizen living abroad:

"My name is Andrew Tanenbaum. I am one of the 7 million U.S. citizens living abroad. I am a professor of computer science at the Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Most of you have never heard of me but in an itsy-bitsy, teeny-weeny corner of the universe I have done enough stuff that Google has somehow managed to dig up 10,000 pages referring to me."

Turnabout is hardly fair play.

[forgotten_my_nick]

If you were to set up the same vote for say England you would be luckly to find many people in the US to know who is actually running against Mr Blair.

Re:Turnabout is hardly fair play.

[SiliconJesus]

If you were to set up the same vote for say England you would be luckly to find many people in the US to know who is actually running against Mr Blair.

If you had the same question in the United States, you'd be shocked to find that most Americans think he's the King.

High turnout

[suso]

I just voted this morning and there has apperently been high early voter turnout for the past few weeks. I'm almost more curious to see how high of a voter turnout there will be. If it hits 81.8% or higher, it will be the highest since 1860.

Re:Had to be non-US

[cloak]

He's a US Citizen, just not living in the United States.

Re:Sigh, how about a less biased site?

[Dasein]

Total Crap. Polls are conducted over a period of time. The votemast firgure out the middle date and picks the poll that has the latest middle data. In the case of a tie, he chooses the poll with the shortest duration.

It doesn't matter if the latest poll is a Strategic Vision poll (thought to be republican-leaning) or a Zogby (who some think is democrat-leaning)

If you've been really watching the site, you'd notice that there have been wild swings from Kerry to Bush in the past.

Now, I think that this is just a crackpot attempt to discredit what has been a really good site (even if I did wish that he'd throw out Strategic Vission).

Hey Linus - you won!

[rfinnvik]

http://www.electoral-vote.com was running Apache on Linux when last queried at 1-Nov-2004 15:33:26 GMT :)

He is still a US citizen

[bitingduck]

Except he's a US citizen living abroad, which is not the same as not a US citizen.

A friend of mine recently moved to Canada for work and told me that lots of US expats she knows there are voting for the first time in years (often for the first time since they left). If you're living abroad you vote in the last state where you were a resident and you only get to vote for president (maybe senate, too, but I think just prez). Many of those people last lived, and are very likely to vote for Kerry (in Canada, the far right is mostly to the left of the US Dems).

It's going to be an interesting election night...

(sarcasm appreciated except for the nit)

Re:He is still a US citizen

[HeghmoH]

I'm an expat in France and I just voted absentee for the first time in this election. (It's the first time because I was in the US for the last one.) I got what appeared to be exactly the same ballot as everybody else gets, which had the election for president, house and senate seats, state legislature seats, various positions for the city, and even a referendum. It's possible they won't count the others, but none of the material they sent indicated this, so I doubt it. This is in Wisconsin, and other states may be different.

Intellectually honest?

[slykens]

I've followed this guy's site for the last few months and I think he has recently developed a problem with his intellectual honesty.

He is an unabashed Kerry supporter, not in and of itself a bad thing, but he is discarding poll results favorable to the President in order to show a Kerry victory. For example he claims to have averaged recent polls in Florida but a Quinnipiac poll from 10/27 thru 10/31 shows an EIGHT point Bush lead. How he ends up with a 2 point Kerry advantage with that in the average I don't know.

Today is his worst showing yet, in my opinion, and he may be indirectly helping the President. If Kerry supporters believe their man is going to win and win big then voters who are not as committed may not show up to vote.

Remember Karl Rove asking where the FOUR MILLION evangelicals were in 2000? If people think their man will win regardless of their vote then fewer people will make the effort to vote and strange things can happen.

Re:Intellectually honest?

[crazyfreakid]

Slykens, he ALWAYS uses the poll with the most recent median date. He's currently using a Zogby poll with a median date of 10/31 in Florida, making it more recent than the Quinnipiac poll. He has explained this many times over the past few weeks: He only averages polls that have the same median date and polling length.

Re:Intellectually honest?

[handorf]

For a 1 day poll, that day would be the median.

Polling has reached a frantic pace over the past few weeks... if you think there are no polls running because it's Sunday I'm afraid you're mistaken. There are some pollsters he won't use, but he's very forthcoming about which ones he's written off and why (usually "Push" polling... e.g. "Are you going to vote for Kerry even though he will kill your children and eat them?")

He has changed his methodology several times over the past few months but is always consistent, even for most of October when the map showed Bush winning by 80+ electoral votes.

Re:And unfortunately, a site that won't load today

[djdead]

Actually it's up through www.electoral-vote9.com/

Electoral College is Obsolete

[jaylee7877]

I was in the U.S. for a couple of weeks, so I haven't commented much on ELECTORAL COLLEGE (not that I would have said much had I been around), but for what it is worth, I have a couple of comments now.

As a result of my occupation, I think I know a bit about where politics are going in the next decade or so. Two aspects stand out:

1. MICROPOLITICS VS MONOLITHIC ELECTORAL SYSTEM

Most states are Monolithic Electoral Systems. Votes are tallied in each state and the winner of each state recieves all of the electoral votes for that state. Even if 49.9% of voters are for candidate #2, the 50.1% for candidate #1 means he gets all of the state's electoral votes.

While I could go into a long story here about the relative merits of the two designs, suffice it to say that among the people who actually are in politics, the debate is essentially over. Micropolitics have won.

The only real argument for monolithic electoral systems was performance, and there is now enough evidence showing that micropolitics systems can be just as fast as monolithic electoral systems systems (e.g., Florida 2000 never would have happened if we would have just counted up every American's vote and the candidate with the greatest percent over 40% would win) that it is now all over but the shoutin'.

2. Portability

The Micropolitical Voting system was made to be portable to other future democracies such as Iraq, Afghanistan and has proven that it is scalable to nation states as large as China and India, the Monolithic electoral system would involve much more work in creating districts, states, commonwealths, etc. to the point that it is really not worth porting and would need to be started from scratch.

Don't get me wrong, I am not unhappy with the Electoral System. It will get all the people who want to turn Micropolitics into a true democracy off my back. But in all honesty, I would suggest that people who want a **MODERN** "free" nation look around for a micropolitical-based, portable political system.

Re:Electoral College is Obsolete

[johndeeregator]

The electoral college is not obselete. If we got rid of it, the presidential election campaigns would focus on the top five or ten population centers/media markets in the country, and effectively disenfranchise the rest of it. There is a reason why our forefathers gave disproportionate numbers of votes to smaller states--because they realized the danger of letting one particular geographical area or population center have control of the system.

You need to remember that this country is (or at least, is supposed to be) a federation of states, and the president is supposed to be the representative of the states, not necessarily the people in them. People do not cast ballots for presidents -- states do. The states can decide the procedures in which they determine how to cast their ballots in any way they deem appropriate.

If this does not make sense to you, think about the UN. You, as a person who lives in a country represented in the UN, do not get to vote for UN resolutions. Rather, your country's representative does.

As for our congressional election system, I think that although the Senate should remain in tact, it would probably benefit the country to change the House to a more European-style parliament so that people outside the Republican-Democrat duopoly could actually have a voice.

Re:Electoral College is Obsolete

[johndeeregator]

Idea: Read the Constitution.

You do not get to vote for president. None of us do. Your state does. You vote for your state's electors, since that is the election system your state has set up. It is the state's choice to cast all of its votes for the state's popular vote winner (although one state currently has a ballot measure which would split up the electoral votes in some situations). We have a federalist system. If you do not and cannot understand the governmental system we use in this country and why we use it, then it's probably best that your vote "doesn't count."

Ob AST

[GillBates0]

Never underestimate the voting power of a country full of hax0rred Diebold voting machines hurtling down the highway of democracy.

- Andrew S. Tanenbaum, 2004.

WHY must "the famous thread" always be brought up?

[hkb]

Why is it that everytime Andrew Tanenbaum is mentioned on Slashdot, the "infamous thread" must be brought up, and not much else? This man IS UNIX history.

Tanenbaum was around looong before Linus/Linux. Before Linux even began, before Soft Landing Linux, those of us who wanted UNIX on our home computers used/loved Minix.

Minix was the technology that sparked a lifetime love of UNIX for many a users, not just the younger Linux.

Occasionally, I'll reflect on the beautiful blue console of my Amiga, on which I ran Minix off of 3 (as I recall) floppies.

So please, let's not dismiss Andrew Tanenbaum's role in computer history. Remember that his shoulders are the giant's that Linus has been standing on.

I can't wait to see what the people standing on Linus's shoulders come up with...

Polling

[Jacco de Leeuw]

AST: I understand polling well.

Ha, but how about interrupts!? :-)

Is AST a Linux convert?

[Greg Larkin]

Here's some interesting information from a previous Votemaster comment:

The attackers have tried repeatedly to break in, but the server is a rock-solid Linux system which has stood up to everything they threw at it and hasn't crashed since I got it in May.

The full Google cache of the page is here

Hopefully, the lawsuits will happen

[zogger]

I actually hope there are thousands of lawsuits. Besides helping to expose both the D and R partys shenanigans, I want to have them bust up diebold and those other election fraud companies forever, and get rid of the notion of pre hacked black box voting elections, and shakeup the population to stop being such utter sheep when it comes to something as important as this. If it takes a thousand lawsuits, better that than the alternative, which would be a full dictatorship shortly once these machines are entrenched all over and legitimised by an "accepted vote tally" and they know they can get away with it. 2002 was a test, and they "got away with it". If they do the same in 2004, that's it, it's over.

This is my opinion of course, but I think it has a lot of merit based on what we know so far.

My opinion of him has radically changed

[Billly Gates]

I first had issue with anyone who called a multithreaded filesystem "a hack" and his mean spirited flame war with Linus looked uncool.

Sure, you can disagree with many issues but there needs to be an open mind in the scientific and academic community. Flaming others is a sign of weakness and insecurity. Especially when he told Linus "You would not get good grades in my course..." kind of proves that.

He tried to explain himself later on slashdot saying he merely disagreed with him but I was not too sure.

www.electoral-vote.com is an awesome site that I find truly non biased. I go there every day being a political junky. For those who say he is liberal all I have to say is look at his past entries? When Bush was ahead after the RNC liberals accused him of being a Bush sheep.

What kills me is he using Linux and not Darwin, AIX, or MacOSX which are "not obsolete". :-)

I think Linus has the ultimate say now in the flamewar contest.

"It's our vote, not yours"

[llywrch]

Reading this retort, I was immediately reminded of Tannenbaum's comment about the bully in his school. If you really _don't_ care what the rest of the world thinks of the U.S., then don't be surprised when they aren't willing to help us the next time a terrorist attack strikes us.

Considering just how crappy our economic health is at the moment, an international boycott would only make things in the U.S. worse, irregardless of the size of our economy. And I wouldn't be surprised if that came to pass.

Geoff

How to go your own way

[Gorimek]

If you always do the opposite of what those you dislike do, you're not really going your own way. You are just slavishly following others. That you're going in the opposite direction from them doesn't change the fact that you are a slave to their decisions. You're an "anti sheep" if you will.

A true free thinking rebel has no problem doing exactly what the huge masses of idiots do, if he happens to enjoy it.

Offtopic but...

[Merk]

Am I the one who can't wait for the George W. Bush presidential library? What a laugh that place is going to be.

Re:Offtopic but...

[Gid1]

Presumably it'll be climate-controlled to prevent the wax crayon melting.

Re:I disagree

[geg81]

European governments would have to convince their besotted (with social programs) populace that spending more than 2% of their GDP on defense is required.

Required by what? To have a military that is as bloated and useless as the US military?

Most of your nations

You're making unwarranted assumptions.

still operate under a US-provided nuclear umbrella.

I gather most Europeans would prefer not to, if they ever did.

"Asserting leadership" is impossible without military might.

What is the US going to do with its military might? Bomb Europe? Bomb China? The instant that happened, the US economy would be in complete ruins and the US would be an international outcast. Those hundreds of billions of dollars spent on Iraq and Afghanistan haven't even been able to bring those nations under control. Military might is an outdated concept: what little the US has, it can't seriously exercise.

I don't consider Europe a threat, and neither does this administration

This whole notion of "threat" is so cold war. If you want to talk about "threats", Europe is an economic threat to the US, along with China and India. And if the US wants to counter that "threat", it can only do by becoming more open, more tolerant, and more competitive, not through more military power and intervention.

Re:The million-dollar question

[killjoe]

RE costs:

I don't think cost is a factor. If it was they would have stopped by now.

RE Arab population and Israel as a Democracy.

Isreal needs to make up it's mind. Is it a jewish state or is it a democracy. You can no more have a jewish democracy then you can have a christian democracy, a white democracy or a muslim democracy. You either have full sufferage or you don't have democracy. Israel is not a democracy, it's the fullfillment of zion. I frequently describe it as a theo-democracy. It a theocracy that is governed by pseudo democratic process.

RE Borders:.

THere are UN resolutions that draw the Israeli border.

RE Fence:.

I agree with you to an extent. I agree that whoever is left on the israeli side of the fence gets to become a full fledged israeli citizen. The only thing you have to be careful of is that the fence is not constructed so as to take all of the available water, arable land, etc.

RE Geneva convention:

It's toothless. For all practical purposes israel is the most powerful nation on the planet. If anybody attacks israel the US will turn them into a parking lot. If the UN attempts to pass a resolution to force israel to do something the US will veto it. If Israel bombs another country and the country attempts to retaliate the US will destroy that country.

Israel is not bound by any laws of man or god. It can do whatever it wants, whenever it wants to whoever it wants. They could carpet bomb syria tommorow and kill everybody in there and nobody can do anything about it.

The only thing that is holding back israel from massive ethnic cleansing in the occupied terratories is their own internal morality. Right now the people calling for genocide are a minority. Who knows what will happen in the future. I suspect if the soul of the israeli nation continues in it's current path that minority will become a majority and a final solution will be proposed in the knesset by the likes of netanyahu and sharon.