Obama v McCain Polling

[FutureTaoiseach]

Michigan problems too - this time with the optical-scanners needed to count paper-ballots in Oakland county:

ES&S Op-Scans 'Yielding Different Results Each Time Same Ballots Run Through Machines' in MI County
Failure Discovered During Pre-Election Testing on Systems Used Widely Throughout U.S.; Company Failed to Perform Maintenance
Letter Sent from County to Federal Officials Last Week; Has EAC Notified Other Jurisdictions as Per Their Federal Mandate?...
Guest Blogged by John Gideon of [COLOR=#990000]VotersUnite.org[/COLOR]
The U.S. Election Assistance Commission (EAC) received [COLOR=#990000]this letter [PDF][/COLOR] well over a week ago from Oakland County, MI, concerning ES&S precinct-based optical-scan systems that "yielded different results each time" the "same ballots were run through the same machines"...
The issue is this - four of our communities or eight percent - reported inconsistent vote totals during their logic and accuracy testing with the ES&S machines. The same ballots, run through the same machines, yielded different results each time.
...
ES&S determined that the primary issue was dust and debris build-up on the sensors inside the M-100.
...
Unfortunately, they [local clerks] are prohibited from performing any maintenance/cleaning on the machines as it voids the warranties. ES&S has not performed any preventative maintenance under the state contract, since the machines were delivered three years ago.
This problem, discovered during pre-election "Logic & Accuracy" testing of the systems, would hardly be the first time that ES&S has failed to deliver on maintenance contracts, adversely affecting voters and election results in the bargain. We saw many similar problems during the 2006 primary election cycle. These precinct-based scanners are used throughout the nation, as ES&S is the nation's largest distributor of voting systems in the U.S.
The EAC received this letter a week ago, and we're trying to learn when it was finally posted to their website. But, more importantly, as they have a mandate via the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) of 2002 to serve as a "clearinghouse" for such voting system problems, has the EAC sent a warning about this issue to any other jurisdictions where the same equipment or company is used?

BTW, 8 counties in Michigan, containing 3.93 million people (out of 7.47 million), are using this kind of ES+S machine. Furthermore, 48 million registered voters live in areas using ES+S Optical scanners.

And now 7 hour waits to vote in parts of Georgia and Florida:

Impossibly Long Lines for Elderly, Other Voters in FL, GA, Elsewhere
Amounts to 'Elderly Abuse,' Says Emailer; 'A Poll Tax,' Says MSNBC's Rachel Maddow...
From an emailer in Florida...
Brad - I'm watching elderly voters, with canes, who can barely stand, waiting for up up 7 hours to early vote in Florida. It's breaking my heart. PLEASE WRITE ABOUT IT AND DEMAND AARP TO MONITOR THIS. I really hope people are not getting hurt in their attempt to exercise their voting rights. This is either voter disenfranchisement or elder abuse - neither is acceptable.
And we continue to hear from other sources that the bottleneck in Florida is at check-in with the state's new, computerized voter registration system, not with the new paper ballot op-scan system which is used after a voter votes. (Though there have been reported problems with the state's new Diebold print-on-demand system for printing ballots for voters to fill out as well.)
Rachel Maddow correctly noted (see video below) that these waits in FL, GA, and elsewhere, amount to a "poll tax." She's right.
As [COLOR=#990000]I noted last week[/COLOR], we have just one early voting location in all of Los Angeles --- the largest voting jurisdiction in the country, larger than 41 states combined --- and at this point, I have no idea if I'll be able to vote myself if the lines are too long tomorrow, since I have to go on air LIVE, hell or highwater at 3pm PT to anchor the [COLOR=#990000]NovaM Radio Network's[/COLOR] "Special Election Night Coverage."

Here's what the lines looked like this weekend at L.A.'s only early voting location, a 40-minute drive from where I live (photo: Margery Epstein)...

And here's Rachel making her case, and pointing to 10 hour lines in Atlanta and elsewhere..

One poll - the only one to say this - has Obama leading only 50-48. Note how accurate their projections were in 1992/6/00/04.

[jfk2008]

One poll - the only one to say this - has Obama leading only 50-48. Note how accurate their projections were in 1992/6/00/04.

Now, now, now. You've quoted that pretty selectively!

The Battleground poll has two scenarios. One scenario (the Tarrance Projection) gives Obama 50.2% with McCain on 48.3%.

The other (the Lakes Projection) gives Obama 51.5% and McCain 46.5%.

The Tarrance Projection is from Republican Ed Goeas at the Tarrance Group and the Lakes Projections is from Democrat Celinda Lake at Lake Partners.

[jfk2008]

Polls from Sunday and Monday from fivethirtyeight.com:



Their final prediction for the distribution of Electoral College votes and the popular vote is as follows:

Our model projects that Obama will win all states won by John Kerry in 2004, in addition to Iowa, New Mexico, Colorado, Virginia, Nevada, Florida and North Carolina, while narrowly losing Missouri and Indiana. These states total 353 electoral votes. Our official projection, which looks at these outcomes probabilistically -- for instance, assigns North Carolina's 15 electoral votes to Obama 59 percent of the time -- comes up with an incrementally more conservative projection of 348.6 electoral votes.

We also project Obama to win the popular vote by 6.1 points; his lead is slightly larger than that in the polls now, but our model accounts for the fact that candidates with large leads in the polls typically underperform their numbers by a small margin on Election Day.

So much for 'Coalgate'.

[Utopian Hermit Monk]

Which presidential polls were most accurate?

The Pew Research Center and Rasmussen Reports were the most accurate in predicting the results of the 2008 election, according to a new analysis by Fordham University political scientist Costas Panagopoulos.

The Fordham analysis ranks 23 survey research organizations on their final, national pre-election polls, as reported on pollster.com.

On average, the polls slightly overestimated Obama's strength. The final polls showed the Democratic ahead by an average of 7.52 percentage points -- 1.37 percentage points above his current 6.15-point popular vote lead. Seventeen of the 23 surveys overstated Obama's final victory level, while four underestimated it. Only two -- Rasmussen and Pew -- were spot on.

Here is the list --

1T. Rasmussen (11/1-3)**
1T. Pew (10/29-11/1)**
3. YouGov/Polimetrix (10/18-11/1)
4. Harris Interactive (10/20-27)
5. GWU (Lake/Tarrance) (11/2-3)*

6T. Diageo/Hotline (10/31-11/2)*
6T. ARG (10/25-27)*
8T. CNN (10/30-11/1)
8T. Ipsos/McClatchy (10/30-11/1)
10. DailyKos.com (D)/Research 2000 (11/1-3)

11. AP/Yahoo/KN (10/17-27)
12. Democracy Corps (D) (10/30-11/2)
13. FOX (11/1-2)
14. Economist/YouGov (10/25-27)
15. IBD/TIPP (11/1-3)

16. NBC/WSJ (11/1-2)
17. ABC/Post (10/30-11/2)
18. Marist College (11/3)
19. CBS (10/31-11/2)
20. Gallup (10/31-11/2)

21. Reuters/ C-SPAN/ Zogby (10/31-11/3)
22. CBS/Times (10/25-29)
23. Newsweek (10/22-23)


Texas on the Potomac: The List: Which presidential polls were most accurate?

[FutureTaoiseach]

Missouri should finally (!) report on Tuesday.

Even if Obama were to win 80 percent of the provisionals, however -- which seems exceptionally optimistic -- he still would net only 3,780 votes, leaving him about 1,000 shy of McCain. Moreover, some provisional ballots are in fact illegitimate, cast by voters who are not properly registered, etc. The rules of thumb I have seen are that somewhere between one-half and two-thirds of provisional ballots usually hold up upon review. A more realistic scenario then is that two-thirds of the provisionals are counted and two-thirds of those go to Obama, in which case Obama would net about 1,400 votes, not nearly enough to close his gap with McCain.

[FutureTaoiseach]

Missouri finally called for McCain. Only the second time since 1904 it voted for the loser, and the first time ever that a Democrat has won without it. Underlines that this is not a conventional election, and that those who got it wrong can be forgiven because of the imponderables brought about by the Obama candidacy, including ethnic-minority turnout, youth vote, historical-patterns etc.

Bringing the final Electoral Map to:
Obama 365 (incl 1 of Nebraska's 5 EVs)
McCain 173

[tmesis2008]

Missouri finally called for McCain. Only the second time since 1904 it voted for the loser, and the first time ever that a Democrat has won without it. Underlines that this is not a conventional election, and that those who got it wrong can be forgiven because of the imponderables brought about by the Obama candidacy, including ethnic-minority turnout, youth vote, historical-patterns etc.

Bringing the final Electoral Map to:
Obama 365 (incl 1 of Nebraska's 5 EVs)
McCain 173

Unfortunately for you the "unconventionality" of the election was quite apparent before voting started. You knew about the large democratic registration drive, you knew how Obama had stirred the youth vote, you knew that Obama had a large ground game, you knew that Obama would win the black vote by 90%+...even if you didn't know all that, the state polls for weeks before the election said Obama would win in the region of 350-375 EV and the national polls indicated a significant lead for Obama.

That being said I enjoyed your analysis. You (and McCain) were unlucky that the economy became such a major issue when it did and it would definitely have been a lot closer if that had not happened. That being said, I still think Obama would have won it.

You couldn't have known when you made your bets that McCain would make such an awful pick for VP and would react so rashly and wrongly to the economic situation. He also gave the game away at and after the 1st debate somewhat. Obama (rightly) sensed that the American people would like to see someone who could agree with their political opponents some of the time and made a point of agreeing with McCain many times during the debate, and McCain played right into his hands by mocking that agreement in an advertisement after the debate.

Finally though, I would like to say thank you FT for keeping this thread up to date all of the time. That required some effort and I appreciate it as you often posted information which I may not have seen otherwise.

There might be a general election next year in this country and we are surely going to have a Lisbon 2. I wouldn't bet against you getting some of that cash back then.

[FutureTaoiseach]

There might be a general election next year in this country and we are surely going to have a Lisbon 2. I wouldn't bet against you getting some of that cash back then.

There won't be an election because that would require the Taoiseach to have a majority in Dail Eireann and then to get the President to agree. The Greens deffo will not want one and will pull out rather than allow it - but FF won't want it either for reasons that are obvious. FG will want one but the Greens will make crossing the floor and setting up a 1994-style Rainbow conditional on one not being called. Remember the president is not bound to agree unless An Taoiseach has the support of such a majority. Agree on Lisbon 2 though.