Electoral-Vote.com Returns for 2006 Elections 236
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.
Almost. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Almost. (Score:5, Insightful)
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..."
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
The electoral system would have to be reformed (Score:2)
An election mechanism that makes sense (Score:3, Insightful)
You do get to choose between more than two people. The current problem is that if you choose anyone other than the top two candidates, you effectively remove a vote from the candidate you prefer of the top two.
The solution is a mechanism in which you can express your preference for the candidates you believe in and still express your preference for the guy who has a chance but isn't your favorite over the one other guy who has a chance who you really can't stand.
This mechanism is called Preferential Voti [wikipedia.org]
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
It's true no system is going to be perfect. However, even a system with all of the problems you describe above (which are mainly theoretical and unlikely to be a factor in real life scenarios) would still be preferable to the deeply flawed s
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
If you feel that neither party adequately represents you, then it is your duty to either work within the part
Re: (Score:2)
I'm sorry, but this proves my point.
Re: (Score:2)
1: There are no national offices up for election this year. Your vote is for your representative in the house, which is limited to just your congressional district (avg less than 10,000 people), and maybe a Senator which is limited just to your state. You probably also have school board members, judges, state legislators, governor, mayor, and dog catcher up for election, too.
2: Join a party. If you can't find one that you prefer over the ot
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Yes, you have a choice between two people and it's not perfect. Get over it. Vote for the best person.
Re: (Score:2)
Interesting ideas. First, Gore was not running in 2004, and second, the Iraq War [wikipedia.org] started in 2003. I assume you meant "electing Gore in 2000".
Anyway, presidential elections have the complication of the electoral college. For congressional seats, you are voting directly, so it at least feels like you have more power over who wins the race.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Almost. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Sadly, at the moment, candidates not belonging to one of the two main parties don't have a chance of being elected. The only times that has changed in this country is when one party or the other falls apart. Its about time for one of the two parties to completely implode, the only real question is which party will go first. The far-left is already wreaking havoc in the Democratic party, and the
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
How so? As far as I can tell, the thing that's wreaking havoc on the Democratic Party is (a) being completely out of power, and thus almost completely ineffective at governing, and (b) until recently(?), not having figured out a way to respond to the Republican Party's relentless demonization of all things non-Republican.
The only saving grace for the Democrats is that the Republicans' skill at demagoguery is surpassed by their incompetence at ru
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Drop the fear-mongering about a draft, we don't have one, and its not coming back anytime soon.
drowning in a gulf coast city,
If you choose to live there, then you deal with the consequences of living below sea level on a coast with a history of hurricanes.
or dying of disease after the EPA lies about air quality,
The EPA can only lie about what was told to them. If they told the truth as it was told them it'd still likely be full of
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Slashdotted (Score:5, Funny)
Well, lets hope that it returns by Nov 7th as it's down right now.
Your vote counts... (Score:2)
In 2004 (Score:2)
Re:In 2004 (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
If you Google("exit polls" ukraine) [google.com] you will see that there was a similar disparity between the exit polls and the official results in a Ukrainian election held around that same time.
There was almost universal agreement in the West that in the Ukrainian election the exit polls were correct and the official results were rigged. AFAIK, the last two national elections that Bush purportedly won (and now the recent election in Mexico) are the only
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Google provides some good info on its first search page: http://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-a&rls= org.mozilla%3Aen-US%3Aofficial_s&hl=en&q=poll+disp arity+indicates+tampering&btnG=Google+Search [google.com]
I seem to recall seeing something on some conservat
Re:In 2004 (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
They said they don't know why there was a statistically significant difference between their exit polls and the official results expect if for some unknown reason Kerry voters were more willing to partake in the exit poll than Bush voters. I can certainly think of at least one other possible reason.
But not to worry, they were able to still get their "exit poll results" closer to the official res
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Republicans prevented more than 350,000 voters in Ohio from casting ballots or having their votes counted -- enough to have put John Kerry in the White House.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Yes, she's just a terrible person, forcing people to vote the way they did, not for Kerry. Or are you confusing 2004 with 2000, when she also didn't force anybody to vote in any particular way? I see.
Insightful - Only on Faux News (Score:2, Informative)
Don't mind beng modded down - must be a Right-Winger or an extermely uninformed Mod who modded up the parent as Insightful. So all the reports of widespread voting irregularites and voter suppression in a state governed by the GW's brother were all just a teensy-weeensy co-ink-a-dince?
The election was stolen - the Diebold machines are a plot to steal yet another election.
The 2004 Ohio election results have recently been ordered to be held and not destroyed, since they might record yet another reversal
Re: (Score:2)
"All" of the reports? Nice sweeping, and fact-less generality, there. Show the way in which the governor of that state controls the local county election boards, and we'll have more to talk about. Show the way in which the governor of that state caused the news networks to "call" that election in Gore's favor before the western-most (and least l
Re: (Score:2)
Exactly why I mentioned the lack of any facts in the comment I responded to. It's just fine to refer to "all the irregularities" that someone says "stole" the election... but the multi-year-marathon of not actually showing what they are does indeed have me annoyed and indignant. So, I trot out a couple reminders of how things actually
Re: (Score:2)
You should probably get your news from some source other than the alien broadcasts that you receive through your dental fillings.
No votes were "prevented" from being counted. The losing candidate wanted only a re-evaluation of the votes in the four counties where he knew he had the strongest representation, and the election review folks in each of those counties were applying conti
How do poll results help (real) voters? (Score:2, Insightful)
*sheep sounds*
Re: (Score:2)
It works the other way, too. If my candidate is ahead in the polls, I might want to help out to assure victory.
Besides, they're simply INFORMING the voters. Surely you can't have a problem with that?
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
They let me know if my candidate needs more help, so I know whether to give him more money and start knocking on doors, or if I can focus on another candidate that needs my help instead.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Polls are useful to a "real" voter in selecting a candidate, because of intrinsic weaknesses in first past the post electoral systems.
Say you have two challengers, "A" and "B". You vastly prefer both candidates to the incumbent, and slightly prefer candidate A over candidate B. However, polls indicate that candidate B has a good chance of beating the incumbent, but candidate A does not. The voter who consults the polls ends up with their close second choice, whereas the voter who doesn't follow the poll
It's Wrong (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
The reason the Republicans aren't admitting that "their candidate" exists is that they're funding Lieberman; in effect, he is their candidate. After all, he was already voting with them when it mattered (and making a big showing of opposing them when it didn't).
--MarkusQ
Wrong (Score:5, Informative)
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.
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: (Score:2)
I know that. But that doesn't stop the fact that the Democrat Party still wants the voters to vote for the Democrat Party candidate.
First, it isn't a single issue race
Yes it is. Leiberman is one of the most liberal Senators in office. But unlike most of the "netroots", he does not have a blinding hatred for Bush. That, and only that, was what caused the netroots to single him out for special treatment. There was some grumblings about his position on Iraq, but his position is h
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Your biases are showing.
Haha (Score:2)
Success? (Score:4, Insightful)
What exactly does this quote from the summary mean? What does one mean when one says that a election polling site "was a pehnomenal success"? I think that this an excellent site and visiting it many times each day during the 2004 election. In the end, the final prediction turned out wrong (no fault of the site, as it is an aggregate of all the polls which themselves were wrong). But this does raise the following question... what is the point of tracking polls and why do we political junkies savor them so? I'd be curious to see a survey on the the historical accuracy of polling, as it seems to me that Republicans consistently outperform (or alternately Dems underperform) their polled-predicted performance. The reasons for this could range anywhere from Republicans "stealing the vote" or emocrats just not being as motivated as they say there are, or even a biased polling system.
Heck, I'd even suggest that this obsession with tracking polls hurts the country, in the sense that it conditions the population toward and expected outcome, and when that outcome does not come (e.g. 2004) the losing side's rage is amplified and it forments conspiracy theories where there may be none. None of this helps us as a society. So I ask again - what does "success" mean in terms of polling?
There is only one poll that matters - and it occurs at the ballot box.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
That being said, polls have a margin of error and are pretty worthless when the results are close.
If you're involved in the process, (Score:3, Insightful)
Sometimes this works too well and the winner will have spent just enough effort and money to get fifty percent of the vote plus epsilon, which since epsilon is within the margin of error will create bitter fights over the results.
Who, What, When, Where, Why. (Score:2)
Actually your vote probably doesn't count (Score:2)
There is a better way of course but you're unlikely to see it in your lifetime.
Re: (Score:2)
Well, there is some room for optimism... there's a movement afoot amongst various states to agree to allocate all their electoral votes to the winner of the nationwide popular vote tally. The agreement would be legally binding and go into effect as soon as enough states are parties to it represent 270 votes (i.e. enough to be the sole determiners of the election winner). The bill [nationalpopularvote.com] has been passed in California [latimes.com] and is awaiting t
Actually your vote never counts (Score:2)
As far as I know, no election has ever been won by one vote. So your vote does not count anything. If you want to actually make a difference, you had better participate in the campaign somehow. It's a good thing actually, don't feel like you are wasting your vote because you vote for the independent candidate with no chance to win.
Andrew S Tanenbaum (Score:5, Informative)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Tanenbaum [wikipedia.org]
"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."
Horserace blog (Score:2)
This guy [blogspot.com] had excellent and accurate analysis of the 2004 election. I hope he starts up again.
Re:Andrew S Tanenbaum (Score:5, Funny)
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: (Score:2, Funny)
vote for you slashdot party candidate (Score:2)
great, but flawed (Score:2)
If electoral-vote is down... (Score:3, Informative)
Diggnabbit. (Score:2)
how strongly to one side or not? (Score:2, Interesting)
From my analysis of his table "mean" column...
What I found interesting from the table is that the 55 Republicans are more beholden to their side (on avg, 10.47 away from 100% on all issues) than the 44 Democrats are to their side (on avg, 13.56 away from 100% on all issues).
Since that data is taken from all the same bills/amendments/etc,
Re: (Score:2)
Are they "beholden to their side", or just "strongly committed to their beliefs on the core issues"? I don't think it's possible to tell based on the cited data.
Unless... (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
No, but generalized apathy helps no one.
What we really need to do is:
Hate W? Great, get out there and vote against his party!
Please, let's have sufficient turnout that, irrespective of the outcome, we don't have one side whining on, at great taxpayer expense, about how the other thugged the election.
Not that facts
Re:Think Happy Thoughts, Ignore Reality (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
Humor about idiots in politics (Score:3, Interesting)
"All idiots, insane persons, and persons convicted of infamous crime unless restored to their civil rights are excluded from the elective franchise."
This was amended in 1988 to refer to people declared legally incompetent instead of "idiots and insane persons".
Some people opposed the amendment because they like having a constitution that said idiots weren't allowed to vote.
Re: (Score:2)
The Party is not President Bush, and President Bush is not the Party. Vote for or against policies. Trying to indirectly slap Bush in the face by voting against someone simply because they are in the same Party is petulant and immature. By voting for advocates of fiscal conservatism and the free-market who are Republican, I can be "voting against" President Bush just as much as someone who votes for
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
"The difference between theory and practice is greater in practice than in theory"
Part of the compromise inherent in our representative democracy is that you're guaranteed some bathwater with your
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
As nerds, we should be able to look at the way the US Government plays out (for twisted values of "plays") and say "Yep: got a poorly factored hierarchy here, with three layers of government, and then the layering completely shot by TLAs like the SSA and IRS".
Note that I'm specifically attacking the factoring here, not trying to start a flamewar over whether the SSA (Social Security Administration) is a Good T
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
This is management brought to you by the "If it ain't br0k3, fix it until it is" crowd.
Multiplying the staff by 50 represents a lower bound, you starry-eyed optimist!
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
For good or for ill - mostly for ill - the rules of the Congress are set up so that the majority party has a great deal of power.
Sadly, so long as the current leadership of Republican party remains in place, a vote for any Republican ca
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
This is rather idealistic and misses reality. In the United States, if a party has a President in office that President is regarded not just the leader of the country but also the political leader of the party. Given the President's power of the Bully pulpit, the influence
Re: (Score:2)
I dont see how either the UK or the USA can call themselves a democracy, when they have such flawed systems.
Surely the guy with most votes should win right?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
And of course, thanks to the arbitrary lines we drew on a map over the last few hundred years, some people will have a great deal more say over who will control Congress than others. If you're living in an area with a close race, your individual decision to go to the polls matters a lot. If you're living in Utah like me, you get to watch a good candidate--one who really seems to understand what this
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
It's a really whiny, 2nd-grade kind of voter who demands his or her vot
Re: (Score:2)
Someone isnt very good at not being a pompus ass.
What were you saying about 1 vote [studentsfirst.us]? You vote 'counts' in the fact that your choice is represented in the total results. When you cast it, it counts period. It should be no suprise in the US, that people only consider a vote to count only when it could be the deciding vote, as if to say that their vote is somehow more important than the re
that's OK (Score:2)
It's not as if the other party doesn't take campaign contributions.
Lots of contributers automatically give money to the incumbant, no matter what party that may be. Other contributers just give money to both!
The DMCA wasn't a republican thing, but it could have been! The same for various wars; democrats like to start t
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Not at all. First, budgets (including "handouts") are renewed, revised, and renegotiated every year (or perhaps in some states every n years?); the criminal code is not. Second, if what you suggest were the case, laws against cocksucking would have been stricken long ago, while economic policies would en
Re: (Score:2)
The mere existance of a stupid law is not proof that it would be difficult to remove. A law against cocksucking is easy to repeal. Nobody goes bankrupt if we decide to allow cocksucking. If that hasn't been don
Re: (Score:2)
History (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Byt he way, I not an American myslef, nor do I live in the US. But I do accept that Slashdot is a US site, and has a US-centric focus.