Electoral-Vote.com Returns for 2006 Elections

Klaus writes "In the 2004 Presidential race, the website electoral-vote.com tracked individual state polls, providing a map of the changing political scene. The map, updated daily, was a phenomenal success. The site is back for the 2006 Congressional elections. It is providing descriptions of the top 40 House races, and all 33 Senate races, as well as valuable information for prospective voters." Remember, your vote counts. Make it out there on November 7th.

Comments

Almost.

[A beautiful mind]

Remember, your vote counts.

Remember, the one who counts your vote counts.

Re:Almost.

[Somatic]

Remember, your vote counts.

Sure. Out of the entire country, I get to choose between TWO people, neither of whom represent me. Then this idiot will be in charge for the remainder of his term, and every time he does something I don't like (all the time), I'll be told it's my fault because "it's a democracy".

Then, I'll have to hope the election doesn't get hijacked.

A party system isn't democracy, it's crap. Washington was the only one who had it right: "It serves to distract the Public Councils, and enfeeble the Public Administration....agitates the Community with ill-founded jealousies and false alarms; kindles the animosity of one....against another..."

Slashdotted

[OmegaBlac]

Well, that was quick.

The site is back for the 2006 Congressional elections.

Well, lets hope that it returns by Nov 7th as it's down right now.

Re:In 2004

[Pink Tinkletini]

Didn't the author claim microkernels would prevail?

Andrew S Tanenbaum

[Psionicist]

In case you don't know, the guy behind this website is Andy Tanenbaum, the Minix guy, the Linus Torvalds flameware guy, the Modern Operating System guy.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Tanenbaum

"In 2004 Tanenbaum created electoral-vote.com, a popular web site analyzing opinion polls for the 2004 U.S. Presidential Election, using them to project the outcome in the Electoral College."

Re:Andrew S Tanenbaum

[TheoMurpse]

From: torvalds@klaava.Helsinki.FI (Linus Benedict Torvalds)
Newsgroups: comp.os.minix
Subject: What would you like to see most in electoral-vote.com?
Summary: small poll for my new poll-tracking system
Message-ID:
Date: 7 Sep 06 20:57:08 GMT
Organization: University of Helsinki

Hello everybody out there using electoral-vote.com -

I'm doing a (free) poll-tracking system (just a hobby, won't be big and
professional like Gallop) for the US. This has been brewing since april,
and is starting to get ready. I'd like any feedback on things people
like/dislike in electoral-vote.com, as my website resembles it somewhat
(same physical layout of the map (due to practical reasons) among other
things).

I've currently ported the poll-grepping code, and things seem to work.
This implies that I'll get something practical within a few days, and
I'd like to know what features most people would want. Any suggestions
are welcome, but I won't promise I'll implement them :-)

                              Linus (torvalds@kruuna.helsinki.fi)

PS. Yes - it's free of any electoral-vote.com code, and it has a multi-
threaded fs. It is NOT protable (uses Firefox XUL etc), and it probably
never will support anything other than Firefox, as that's all I have :-(.

Re:Think Happy Thoughts, Ignore Reality

[A beautiful mind]

Stigmatize treating Democracy as some kind of spectator sport

My favorite way to do that is to call those idiots and then explain what the original greek root of it, idiotes, meant for the greeks:

"Idiot" was originally used in ancient Greek city-states to refer to people who were overly concerned with their own self-interest and ignored the needs of the community. Declining to take part in public life, such as (semi-)democratic government of the polis (city state), such as the Athenian democracy, was considered dishonorable. "Idiots" were seen as having bad judgment in public and political matters.

Wrong

[MarkusQ]

It's tempting to think that all Democrats will vote how their Democrat masters tell them to, but Connecticut voters are more mature than that. I suspect at least a third of them will vote for Leiberman.

I'll assume that you weren't following the campaign closely, and aren't just trolling, but that is pretty much exactly wrong. The party bosses opposed Lamont from the start, not wanting to spend resources on Lieberman's "safe" seat. It was the grass roots that kept pushing for a candidate that represented the views of the people. The party only got behind him (to the extent that they have) reluctantly and well after he won the supposedly unwinable primary.

Single issue candidates always do better in primaries than in general elections. Which is why Lamont will probably lose. Leiberman is more solidly liberal than Lamont, and Connecticut is a liberal state. Do the math.

Again, I'll assume that you aren't just trolling, but this is plain nuts. First, it isn't a single issue race (which issue were you thinking, anyway? Reproductive rights? The war? Big pharma vs. the consumer? Lobbyist reform? Immigration? Ethics?). But regardless of which issue you pick, if you look at Lieberman's actions (and ignore is posturing) he's hardly a liberal, and not at all in step with the bulk of the voters (of all flavors) that he supposedly represents. Finally, is big problem is really that he long ago stopped having anything to do with his district, and became a "national politician" who only wanted them as a backdrop for his leap to higher office (which he has repeatedly failed to grasp).

They are, to put it bluntly, fed up with being used.

--MarkusQ

Re:In 2004

[MojoRilla]

You can speculate all you want, or you can read the 77 page report from the company who did the exit polls.