Electoral Vote Predictor 2004: Kerry 291 Bush 247

[Nicholas_J]

Electoral Vote Predictor 2004: Kerry 291 Bush
247

Wow! 41 new polls today. Zogby has released new polls conducted in the battleground states Oct. 13-18 and there is good news and bad news for each candidate. For Bush, the good news is that he is now leading in seven of the 16 battleground states (Arkansas, Florida, Nevada, Ohio, Tennessee, and West Virginia), his best showing ever in the Zogby poll. The bad news is that all of these leads are within the margin of error, so they are statistical ties. For Kerry, the good news is that his leads in Michigan, Minnesota, New Mexico, Oregon, Pennsylvania, and Washington are all outside the margin of error, which ranges from 2% to 4%. But there are other polls today as well. A new poll from the University of Cincinnati shows Kerry ahead in Ohio,
48% to 46%. Rasmussen's tracking poll shows Bush and Kerry tied at 47% each in Ohio, the first time Bush has not led there for weeks. ABC News says its Kerry 50%, Bush 47%, but Fox News says it is the other way: Kerry 45% and Bush 47%. On the other hand, Survey USA has Kerry ahead 49% to 47%. All in all, Ohio is abcomplete tossup at the moment; it could go either way. My rule is still: most recent poll (based on the middle date) wins, with ties resolved in favor of the shortest poll. If two or more polls with the same dates are most recent, they are averaged. Currently, The Fox/Opinion Dynamics poll is the most recent by 0.5 day, so it is being
used today. The complete list of polls is given at the Polling data link to the right of the map.


http://www.electoral-vote.com

Kerry's lead grows from 284 ro 291 since yesterday.

Electoral vote.com is some of the few EV projections that updates its poll on a daily basis as new pollls come out.

[lancdem]

1. LOL, I just looked at NJ and guess what?

A poll by that Republican hack pollster Strategic Vision has Kerry up by just 2, while other polls just out have him ahead by 8 or 13. I imagine we'll be seeing a bunch of equally bogus SV polls in the next 13 days, like ones showing Bush beating Kerry by 5 in PA or 7 in Ohio.

[Nicholas_J]

2. If you look at a few other electoral vote projections

They have Kerry behind, but by so few electoral votes that the election would be tipped by one state changing hands.

Election Projection has 274 Bush 264 Kerry, but this projection is several days old and does not take into consideration recent polls like the NJ polls putting Kerry significantly ahead in that states.

Rasmussen is a bit unpredictable, as they frequently stop their daily electoral tracking polls for several days, usually when it appears that Kerry is starting to get very close to Bush in the polls.
In Rasumussens latest poll, Kerry is within 20 electoral votes of Bush, and again, with Kerry ahead iby a very small margin in Ohio and FLorida, Rasmussen places thesetwo states in their uncomitted category. Again, In Rasmussens polls, which reputedly are Republican leaning (though I havnt seen a great deal to indicate that myself) A very small upset would give Kerry the electoral collge.

Others claim that ELectoral Vote.com is not reliable as they do not count polls on the basis of margin of error. However, they set a rather higher standard to give a candidate a state for sure, and that is by only giving a state to a canidate if the lead in that state is 5 percent of higher. Based on this somewhat methodoligically conservative way of allocating electoral votes, Kerry has 228 sure electoral votes, while Bush only has 184 sure Electoral votes. The other states under 5 percent are weighted, leaning Kerry, very slightly Kerry (or Bush) depending on now many point the candidate leads by. Leaning Kerry would be any state where Kerry leads by 3-5 points. Barely Kerry would be where Kerry leads by 1-2 points. I would say that because Electoral-vote,com uses this very, very cautiousmethod of assigning electoral votes, and the fact that they update their projection on a daily basis, they are somewhat more reliable. The other polls are still using methods that are relatively unreliable. FOr example in some cases they assign a state to BUsh because he won it in 2000, even in cases where Kerry has been leading polls in those states for months, if only by 1 or 2 points.

Also, this projection has advantages over Rasmussen, which gives Bush the most electoral votes, because it takes every poll into account, while Rasmussen relies on its own state polls to assign electoral votes. Again, Rasmussen may have Bush winning a state poll that every other poll has Kerry leading. Rasmussen still has New Jersey as an unassigned state becauae there polls have the state neck and neck between Bush and Kerry. If you change this in Ramussens allocation of electoral votes, Kerry is within a few electotal votes of passing Bush in its polls. THis sometimes seems to be the reason that Rasmussen stops doing its electoral vote calculations daily, and there is a five day gap in their electoral vote polls.

Robert Silvey's electoral vote projection is over a week behind, he has Bush with an enormous lead, but his methodology is the oddest of all, as he uses an average of all state polls for the last 30 days to assign electoral votes. Given the volitility of this race, and the polls in the battleground states , I find this electoral vote projection the most useless of all.

I trust CNN's electoral vote count at all, as it has become obvious that they are selecting polls that give Bush the widest lead, ignoring independant pollsters like Zogby to get their results. Media Matters has just done a scathing article on this and has accused CNN of having a pro Bush bias.

[naufragus]

3. Rassmussen

has so many states as undecided its just not reliable.

anyone who claims they are making a prediction that leaves any state undecided should not be taken seriously no matter who is winng

[0rganism]

4. 27 of those Kerry votes are from Florida, and we know what happens there

Just move FL into the bush column already. We gotta win Ohio or get an upset in NC or VA or TN.

[Nicholas_J]

5. Sorry charlie Florida is not surelly Bush's

The Democrratic party has made massive efforts to prevent what happened in 2000 from happening again. In fact, after what I saw last night of the Democratic party's methods of preventing the same thing from happening (ballots thrown out and people intimidated from voting) it is just not going to happen again. Democrats jjst sued in the state in which the most votes were thrown out in 2000 forcing the Supervisor of Elections of that county into resigning his position, forcing them to open more polling places for early voting. There will be a hindred lawyers at the polling places making sure that no oneis prevented from voting, ten times as many poll watchers as there were in 2000. Democratic party supporters outside of each polling places to provide immediate access to legal assistance for people who are told they cant vote, Aside from the 100 attorneys present art the polling places, there will be a legal swat team of several hundred more attorrneys. There will be a large group of democrat attorneys present at the opening of provisional votes to make sure no valid provisional votes are disqualified.
Dozens of other fail lsafe routines the democratic part has in place.
There are already extremely accurate counts of the numbers of early voters who have voted by polling place.

I would say if you live in Florida, chances are you have the best chance of having your vote count this time. Already the local democrats have sued to prevent the Supervisor of elections from getting rid of a thousand applications to register to vote. The court overruled him in a day, every person who's form was said to have been improperly filled out was given their voters registration card and placed on the rolls. There are large groups of democrats available to make sure that everyone who shows up at the wrong polling place, gets the opportunity to go to the correct polling place, even being driven there, in order to avoid the possibility of having to do provisional votes which could be eleiminated if the votes are places at the wrong polling places. A massive campaign to get as many democrats to vote early is underway to totally eliminate the provisional vote problem.

There are 400,000 more registered democrats in Florida than Republicans. IN order to win, Republicans had to arrange for tens of thousands of democratic votes to disappear in 2000. Some may dissappear this time, but No where near the amount that did in 2000.. Not enough for Republicans to overcome the numerical superiority of Democrats in Florida.

There are simply too many lawyers and party members who will be watching every aspect of the election this time. There will be enourmous numbers of people available to make sure thqat everyon who is qualified to vote will get to vote AND that that vote will be counted.

Even if only half of all registered voters vote, and even if twice as many democrats in Florida vote for Bushthan is anticipated, Kerry would still get more votes than Bush in Florida. What happened in 2000 is that Democrats did not anticipate the Republican efforts to intimidate Democrats into not voting, and there was nobody present to rectify complaints and run interference in order to make sure that those who were turned away got to vote provisionally or get to the correct precinct, The democrats in the most conservative city in this state are fully prepared to prevent what happened in 2000 from happening. If just what happpened in Duval County alone was stopped, this would have led to at least 27,000 more democratic votes being counted in this state. Actions to make sure that every singld vote possible is counted, and that nothing disappears.

[0rganism]

6. If the repukes don't steal Florida, it won't be for lack of trying

Florida's using the DREs, that in itself is enough to make results suspect. What does a computer tell you about a number in a database? Whatever its most recent programmer instructed it to say, that's what. Do you know what the recount rule is for those things? "Print out the results again", that's what.

So when Jeb Bush appoints Bill Scheu to replace Stafford as head of Duvall County's elections, it doesn't take a genius to figure out what's coming down the pike.

When the much-touted computer voting systems don't work worth a crap, it doesn't take a psychic to figure out who benefits from keeping the black voters standing in line all day.

When the GOP sends out an e-mail to its constituents urging them to vote absentee, saying, "You'll feel better on November 2nd knowing your vote was already cast," you don't have to be Howard Cosell to know the score.

When Governor Jeb decides to ignore his own Dept. of State's recommendation and use the same type of voter roll purge he and Kathrine Harris invented back in 2000, you can bet he's not shedding any tears.

Folks like Glenda Hood are in place for exactly one reason: to reliably hand the election to bush, by hook or by crook, and in the courts if necessary. I'll believe Florida goes to Kerry when the polls show him up by 10, and not before.

[Nicholas_J]

7. Again. I live here in Duval

And I KNOW what the democratic party is doing to prevent any ability to rig the elections. Duval only has # touch screen voting machines, all at the Supervisors of elections office. They are using optical scan to count the vote, but virtualy all of the votes are going to be done on paper, all will be verifiable by count.

MOst of the counties in Florida are NOT using computers, most are using paper forms optically scanned. If the form count doesnt match the scan count we will know about it in a minute.

Most of the Florida Democratic Attorneys who will be at all of the precincts work for the largest law firm in the Uniteds State, the fifteenth largest in the world.

Most of the votes lost to Gore in the state of FLorida were lost in Duval County. It WILL not happen again.

I am closely involved in what is going on and I will tell you directly. Stafford didnt resign because of his health. An he would not have been very healthy if the case against him continued.

Scheu will absolutely not be able to rig anything in Duval county.

In fact I say it again, Duval will be the safest place in the United States to cast a vote, and so will most of the state of Florida. Not one valid vote will be lost, not one valid vote will be removed as invalid.

The Democrats are advising early voting. There are large numbers of people taking those who cannot get to the early voting places and making sure that they KNOW how to fill out the forms.

You give far too much credit to Bush, Hood and Scheu, and not enough to the Democratic Party. What happened in 2000 will not happen again.

Not ONE ballot will be moved from a precinct without the party attorneys recording a democratic vote on a separate list. We have things set up that every hour we will know which registered democrat has voted and who has not and we will have hundreds of volunteers who will be calling them in order to find out why they have not, and if they need rides. Nothing has been left to chance. Everything that happened in 200 has been examined and accounted for. Anyone who is told they cant vote vecause they are a felon when they are not will be directed immediately to attorneys who will be present to deal with it.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

8. I Live In Cen FL

That map looks right to me but I'd flip FL and OH...

We win anyway...

[0rganism]

11. From your keyboard to God's monitor, so to speak

Let's hope they don't come up with something new and drastic that we didn't see in 2000 or 2002.

[flpoljunkie]

12. What about hacking into the central tabulation system? Got that covered?

Will the Democratic party have people at the Supervisors' offices around the state watching the central tabulation computer and anyone who gets near it?

Will the results from the opti-scan machines be printed out BEFORE the results are sent via modem to the central tabulation system?

These are the things that concern me--changing the results through the central tabulation system computer without a paper trail, in the case of touchscreen machines.

[Nicholas_J]

13. Yup they even have that covered

They have some positions of democrats watching whatis happening in which the requiement wasadvanced computer expertise. The computer tabulations is going to actually have to match the count of forms given out very very closely. You think they are not going to react if they have counted 100,000 forms given out in a precinct but only 40,000 show up as counted, I dont think so. So the argument that a tabulation that doesnt match the number ofr forms given out will not allow a wrong tablulation to stand.

[tinrobot]

9. Kerry ahead of Gore's numbers

One thing I'm noticing....is that Kerry is WAY ahead of where Gore was in a lot of states, such as VA, NC, TN...

Definitely a good sign.

[Cozmosis]

10. This is actually

The exact result I predict. GO KERRY