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politics reading for geeks
Posted by Laura McLay on October 31, 2008
With four days until the election, here are a few interesting articles and blog posts about the election that deal with numbers:
- In OR/MS Today, Winston Yang writes about how a candidate can win a Presidential election with very few votes (see Mike Trick’s blog for more).
- Could McCain be beating Obama when it comes to 18-24 year old voters? Surprisingly, McCain has almost always come out ahead when polling this demographic. The Numbers Guy discusses problems with the polling (small samples and lack of land lines play a role).
- Marginal Revolution claims that Sarah Palin may have a larger chance of becoming President than John McCain.
- Justin Wolfers of Wharton discusses the odds of Obama winning in a Wall Street Journal article.
- Earlier, I wrote about absentee voting. Record numbers of voters are voting absentee (In fact, I already voted). Fellow operations researcher Ted Allen from OSU is quoted in this article.
- The Numbers Guy has a comprehensive guide for understanding the numbers behind the upcoming election.
Michael Trick said
It is not quite true that “McCain has almost always come out ahead when polling this demographic”. That statement is true only for the IBD/TIPP Pollster (everyone else gets it the opposite way). See http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2008/10/anatomy-of-polling-disaster.html for a great discussion of the issues.