Comments on: Congressional predictions I: Senate 59-41, House 258-177

By: Sam Wang

Sam Wang — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 03:00:09 +0000

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By: Sam Wang

Sam Wang — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 12:42:04 +0000

I have been asked about voter fraud many times. It is a constant source of questions. One of my replies is here.

By: Herb

Herb — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 12:02:03 +0000

I have heard about a predictive model that doesn’t rely on polling data at all but rather uses historic vs present econometric data. What are your thoughts about this type of modeling and could/should it be used in your modeling?

By: Fred

Fred — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 10:16:40 +0000

Hmm. Issues with apparent vote tampering are well-known, and they famously always work in favor of Republicans. Even in this election, we have already witnessed evidence of this, shall we say, partisan malfunction. I agree with William: It won’t affect the outcome of the presidential election.

But that conclusion only underscores the other facet: House and Senate seats. The Republicans aren’t hiding the fact that they’re desperate to avoid losing those seats, and the fact of the matter is that they could easily get away with even a severely conspicuous series of apparent upsets on those votes. Watch it happen.

Folks out there might want to look into the legality (in their state) of videoing their vote, so as to capture any of the several funny goings-on as they happen. Perhaps widespread Youtube evidence will at least force a long overdue dispensation with easily hackable voting solutions.

By: William

William — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 07:48:20 +0000

I wouldn’t be too worried about fraud: http://www.slate.com/id/2202777/ suggests that both parties are hiring massive armies of lawyers ready to pounce at the slightest irregularity. That, plus the landslide margin Obama’s going to win by anyways, should lead to neither party even bothering to try fraud.

By: David Gerrold

David Gerrold — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 05:27:42 +0000

Thanks for some insightful and intelligent analyses of the polls. Much appreciated. Here’s a question you probably haven’t been asked:

I have several friends who are adamant that the presidential election was stolen in 2000 and 2004 by republican shenanigans in Florida and Ohio. They make a good case. They are now concerned (terrified) that the fix is in for this election and that despite the polls pointing to a possible landslide, they fear another rigged election. So my question is, how far off the polls would the results have to be for it to suggest that the vote-counting in any state was significantly tampered with. 2%? 4%? What?

Thanks in advance for considering the question.

By: Sam Wang

Sam Wang — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 03:46:55 +0000

gprimos1 – It would take a final EV count outside the 95% CI to make me think that polling data alone were insufficient to predict the result.

I also plan to take steps to reduce the size of the CI. In addition to the automatically updated history, I will make a final estimate of the Presidential race that may use more than one week of data.

By: mus

mus — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 03:40:07 +0000

Excellent, this is just the kind of post I was looking for. I don’t think nearly enough coverage is given to the senate and house races, I’m glad to now see some juicy details.

By: gprimos1

gprimos1 — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 03:34:31 +0000

Dr Wang,

I have been thinking recently about how to evaluate the success of the model. Would only a final EV value (or in this case, Senate and House seats) outside the election eve 95% EV CI indicate a problem or would you only feel comfortable with a value within the 68% CI?