Slashdot Mirror
The Art of Elections Forecasting
ideonexus writes "Years ago Nate Silver of FiveThirtyEight.com, a blog seeking to educate the public about elections forecasting, established his model as one of the most accurate in existence, rising from a fairly unknown statistician working in baseball to one of the most respected names in election forecasting. In this article he describes all the factors that go into his predictions. A fascinating overview of the process of modeling a chaotic system."
I hope that includes "don't vote according to forecasts". I mean, it'd be nice if more people voted for the candidate they actually want instead of the one they think will win.
If God forks the Universe every time you roll a die, he'd better have a damned good memory.
Ever since the Republican members of the supreme court overturned our campaign finance laws, elections have become an epic bribe-fest where money almost always wins.
You tell me which side is outspending the other 10-1 and I'll tell you who is most likely to win the election.
Let's just save ourselves alot of time and aggravation, and ask the America's 10 most bigoted and bribe-happy billionaires who they would like to win.
Intrade predicted the electoral results of the last election perfectly. When people put their money where their mouth is, you end up with very accurate results.
I, the amazing Karnac, predict a Repubmocrat will preside over the United States once again, as it was, so will it be, ad nauseum.
The term chaotic has a variety of different meanings, but this seems to be closer to what one would call a noisy system than a chaotic system.
Andrew Tanenbaum (of Minix fame) does a good job of tracking state-by-state polling results and what they predict about the Electorial College outcome at http://electoral-vote.com/
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
turn off the TVA
What!! But then who would power my TV?
The idea of predicting elections is quite fascinating. I wonder how its accuracy would compare to one of the better election prediction sites out there, Larry Sabato's Crystal Ball at the University of Virginia's Center for Politics.
Exit polls showed that 88% of Wisconsin voters had already made up their mind before the Democrats had put forward a candidate (in May).
The Governor and friendly PACs had been advertising since before January when they knew the recall was coming.
88% of voters made their call when the spending was completely one-sided. Only after the Democratic primary put forth a candidate did they have targeted supportive advertising.
Perhaps, instead of educating people to understand forecasts, we should be interested in educating people so they can make well informed and educated choices. The great majority of people have little or no education (And I do not mean literacy here). They are unable to analyse, research or investigate in a critical way. They become emotional about things are not possibly capable of understanding and allow those emotions to tell them to whom they should be giving a vote. En educated person, reads between the lines and can see why a candidate is making some promises and can tell which promises will not be fulfilled (Like closing the concentration camp in Guantanamo bay). The only problem, is that politicians that have been elected so far are against the idea of educating people as this will destroy the system as exist today and they will have to get real jobs.
You can go to http://intrade.com/ to get accurate odds on elections. The odds are accurate because people can bet real money on the outcome, so people with good polling or better insider knowledge can bet on the outcome... It had Scott Walker at 93% odds of winning. Funny watching the media say how close it was going to be... and it turned out to be an easy win for Walker (54-46%)
I miss-read the title, thought it was something about Horowitz and Hill being relevant well into the future
horror vacui
I don't know how millions of Americans can get on-line and bitch about their politicians and not do anything. Surely to complain and not get active is a tacit admission that the elections are rigged?
How do you predict the outcome of a rigged election? The same way you get elected .. by being an insider.
Do you know Wildland art It is really insteresting: http://www.wildlandart.webmienphi.vn/
I'm more concerned about the Art of Elections Rigging. The blatant, organized, top-down plan to disenfranchise every non-white or non-GOP voter in the US is breathtaking, soul-crushing, and judging by the Wisconsin recall result, deadly effective.
You now have to have a photo ID to vote, meaning for all practical purposes, those without a drivers license need an entire day to waste to run through the rabbit maze to get an approved alternative ID. Oh, and in most large, red, square states? The voting stations are placed in far-flung suburban enclaves with no real public transportation. But I'm sure that's not intentional. Nosireebob. Might as well have a sign outside that says: "You must be this rich and white to vote."
Cold-comfort, but they are demographically doomed - though I think their plan is to rape and scorch the earth to completion before giving way.
Seems to me I read something that said exactly this same thing recently....
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"