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Electoral-vote.com

Electoral-Vote.com (formally Electoral Vote Predictor) is a website created by computer scientist Andrew S. Tanenbaum. In the periods leading up to U.S. federal elections, the site's primary content is poll analysis to project election outcomes. Since the 2016 elections, the site also has featured daily commentary on political news stories.

Electoral-vote.com
Type of site
Opinion poll analysis, blog
Available inEnglish
OwnerAndrew S. Tanenbaum
Created byAndrew S. Tanenbaum
URLwww.electoral-vote.com
RegistrationNone
LaunchedMay 24, 2004; 19 years ago (2004-05-24) (as Electoral Vote Predictor)

The site was created during the lead-up to the 2004 U.S. Presidential election to predict the winner. The site tries to improve on national polls usually reported in the media, by instead analyzing the most recent polls on the state level, thus simulating the process by which Electoral College votes are determined in the actual election. Updated throughout the campaign, visitors can see who is "ahead" at any time.[1]

Instead of the site lying fallow between election cycles the way it did before, starting in 2015 the site provides daily commentary continuously. On weekends the website focuses more on interacting with readers, with Tanenbaum and Bates answering reader questions on Saturdays and posting a mailbag of reader letters on Sundays.

Several political commenters, such as Chris Weigant,[2] have noted the helpfulness of the website in aggregating polls state by state in order to predict the outcomes of elections.

Staff edit

Through most of the 2004 campaign, Andrew Tanenbaum went by the alias "the Votemaster", keeping his identity a secret. Tanenbaum is a civil libertarian, a member of Democrats Abroad (he is a long-time resident of the Netherlands) and generally supports Democratic candidates for office. He revealed his identity on November 1, 2004, as well as stating his reasons and qualifications for running the website.[3][4]

In 2015, Tanenbaum was joined by Christopher Bates, who contributes to the site under the name Zenger, chosen in honor of John Peter Zenger. Their respective contributions are differentiated by (V) and (Z).[5]

History edit

2004 Presidential election edit

The site began operating on May 24, 2004 with a simple map and a few links to other pages. During the months leading up to the 2004 U.S. Presidential election, the site was updated daily to reflect new state polls. The site was the most popular election site in the country, in the top 1,000 Web sites in the world, and in the top 10 blogs in the world.[citation needed] In November 2004, the website had more than 650,000 hits per day.[4]

The main page consisted of a map of the United States with the individual states colored varying shades of red or blue, based on the polls for that state. For instance, Illinois, a state that was polling strongly for Democrat John Kerry was colored dark blue, whereas Michigan where Kerry's lead polled by a small margin was colored light blue. Analogously, Texas was dark red during the whole campaign, indicating Bush's strong lead there. All of the polling data were provided in multiple formats, including HTML, Excel, and .csv for downloading. Other features included historical data on previous elections, charts and animations showing the polls over the course of time, cartograms, and links to hundreds of other pages and external Websites with tables, charts, graphs, and other election data and information.

The main algorithm just used the most recent poll(s) in every state. If two polls came out on the same day, they were averaged. This algorithm used all published polls, including those by partisan pollsters such as Strategic Vision (R) and Hart Research (D). A second algorithm used only nonpartisan polls and averaged all polls during the past three days. A third algorithm used historical data to predict how undecided voters would break. Maps for each of the algorithms were given every day, but the first one got most of the publicity since it was on the main page.

The site's final tracking using algorithm 1 posted on Election Day, November 2 gave 262 electoral votes to John Kerry and 261 to George W. Bush, with 15 tossups.[6] The second algorithm (averaging 3 days worth of nonpartisan polls) gave Kerry 245 and Bush 278 with 15 tossups. The third algorithm (predicting the undecideds) predicted 281 for Kerry and 257 for Bush.

The actual vote gave Kerry 252 to Bush's 286. Using nonpartisan polls and averaging a few days worth of polls did best. This algorithm got 47 states plus D.C. right, 1 state (Iowa) wrong, and said New Mexico and Wisconsin were too close to call. The most-recent-poll wins algorithm got 46 right, 4 wrong, and one too close to call.[citation needed]

2006 Senate and House elections edit

On September 6, 2006, the site began tracking the 2006 Congressional elections in the Senate. Shortly thereafter, the House of Representatives was added. The map on the site's front page displayed polling for the 2006 Senate races.[7] For House races, the site featured a "Hot House Races" page with links to Wikipedia articles on the candidates, links to the candidates' official websites, and notes on the races.[8] The relatively small number of House election polls as well as 2004's House vote totals were used to project the makeup of the House on the site's front page.[7] The site correctly predicted the winners in all 33 Senate races.

2008 Presidential, Senate, and House elections edit

In late December 2006, the site began its 2008 coverage, which included the presidential race, all 33 Senate races, and about 40 House races that had been close in 2006 and were expected to be highly contested in 2008. For each of the known presidential, senatorial and House candidates, a photo was given, linked to the candidate's Wikipedia entry, along with a brief description of the candidate and race. The site also had four new maps: one showing the 2004 presidential election, one showing the governors by state, one showing the senate by state and finally one showing the House delegations by state. Polling data was presented daily beginning in December 2007 with data from the primaries.

Polling data was presented daily on the likely outcome of the primaries as well as upcoming trends.[9]

The site's electoral vote prediction for the 2008 election was very close to the actual outcome, correctly projecting the winner of every state except for Indiana, and showing Missouri (won by John McCain by only 0.13% of the vote) as a pure tossup.[10] The Senate projection was also close to the actual outcome, predicting 34 of the 35 decided states correctly, including correctly showing a Democratic pickup in Alaska and incorrectly showing the Republican Senator Norm Coleman holding his seat in Minnesota.[11] The Senate results of the Minnesota election was so close that it was contested until the state supreme court ruled in favor of Al Franken on June 30, 2009.

2010 Senate and House elections edit

In 2010 the site projected 51 seats held by Democrats, 48 by Republicans, and 1 by Lisa Murkowski (a Republican running a write-in campaign). It was incorrect about Colorado and Nevada, which instead went to Democrats. It projected 202 House seats held by Democrats, 216 seats held by Republicans, with 17 too close to call. The actual outcome was 195 Democrats and 240 Republicans.

2012 Presidential and Senate elections edit

In 2012 the site projected the electoral votes for Barack Obama and Mitt Romney, and the Senate. Its final analysis predicted 303 electoral votes for Obama, and 220 for Romney, with 15 votes (North Carolina's) too close to call. The actual outcome was 332 to 206; North Carolina went to Romney, but Florida instead went to Obama. Its final projection for the Senate was 51 seats held by Democrats, 45 by Republicans, 1 by independent Angus King (an ally of the Democrats), and 3 too close to call (Montana, Wyoming, North Dakota); Montana and North Dakota elected Democrats.

2014 Senate elections edit

In 2014 the site projected 47 Senate seats held by Democrats, 52 by Republicans, and 1 too close to call (Kansas). The actual outcome was 46 Democrats and 54 Republicans, with Kansas and North Carolina instead going to Republicans.

2016 Presidential election edit

Tanenbaum resumed updating the site in 2015 with daily commentary on the presidential candidates, joined in September by UCLA-trained historian Christopher Bates. During the primaries, the site tracked the leading candidates' expected delegate counts, and progress toward nomination. After the primaries, it began projections based on the polling to date. The site projected that Hillary Clinton would receive 317 electoral votes, and Donald Trump would receive 215, compared to the actual "upset" result: 232 for Clinton and 306 for Trump. Following the election, Tanenbaum and Bates updated the site with daily links to news items and commentary about them. Years later, they noted that Trump's victory was the most shocking upset in their experience following politics.

2018 Senate elections edit

In early September 2018 the site began tracking polling information for Senate races. The site projected 48 Senate seats held by Democrats, 50 by Republicans, and 2 too close to call (Arizona and Missouri). The actual outcome was 47 Democrats and 53 Republicans, with Florida and Indiana instead going to Republicans.

2020 Presidential and Senate elections edit

In 2020 the site projected the electoral votes for Joe Biden and Donald Trump, and the Senate. Its final analysis predicted 350 electoral votes for Biden, and 170 for Trump, with 18 votes (Ohio's) too close to call. Bates predicted that Trump would carry Ohio but Biden would receive one of Nebraska's votes for a final tally of 351-187; Tanenbaum was more cautious about predicting the outcome in toss-up states but did predict a Biden victory.[12] The actual outcome was 306 to 232; North Carolina and Florida both went to Trump rather than Biden along with one of Maine's votes.

The website's final projection for the Senate was 54 seats held by Democrats, 46 by Republicans.[13] The actual outcome was a 50-50 senate because 4 states (Montana, Iowa, North Carolina, and Maine) elected Republicans rather than Democrats.

2022 Senate elections edit

See also edit

References edit

  1. ^ "Poll crazy". The Guardian. Retrieved 9 July 2019.
  2. ^ Weigant, Chris (26 October 2020). "Electoral Math -- The Final Stretch". ChrisWeigant.com. Retrieved 2 August 2022.
  3. ^ The Votemaster FAQ
  4. ^ a b "Harvard Flocks to Electoral Vote Site | News | the Harvard Crimson".
  5. ^ "Votemaster FAQ".
  6. ^ . Archived from the original on 2008-10-25. Retrieved 2008-10-23.
  7. ^ a b Electoral-vote.com
  8. ^ The Hot House Races 2006-10-20 at the Wayback Machine at electoral-vote.com
  9. ^ . The West Georgian. 2008-01-16. Archived from the original on 2011-07-17.
  10. ^ "Electoral-vote.com: President, Senate, House Updated Daily".
  11. ^ "Senate Map".
  12. ^ "ElectoralVote". www.electoral-vote.com. Retrieved 2022-08-02.
  13. ^ "2020 Senate Races". electoral-vote.com. Retrieved 2022-08-02.

External links edit

  • Official website  

electoral, vote, this, article, rely, excessively, sources, closely, associated, with, subject, potentially, preventing, article, from, being, verifiable, neutral, please, help, improve, replacing, them, with, more, appropriate, citations, reliable, independen. This article may rely excessively on sources too closely associated with the subject potentially preventing the article from being verifiable and neutral Please help improve it by replacing them with more appropriate citations to reliable independent third party sources July 2019 Learn how and when to remove this template message Electoral Vote com formally Electoral Vote Predictor is a website created by computer scientist Andrew S Tanenbaum In the periods leading up to U S federal elections the site s primary content is poll analysis to project election outcomes Since the 2016 elections the site also has featured daily commentary on political news stories Electoral vote comType of siteOpinion poll analysis blogAvailable inEnglishOwnerAndrew S TanenbaumCreated byAndrew S TanenbaumURLwww wbr electoral vote wbr comRegistrationNoneLaunchedMay 24 2004 19 years ago 2004 05 24 as Electoral Vote Predictor The site was created during the lead up to the 2004 U S Presidential election to predict the winner The site tries to improve on national polls usually reported in the media by instead analyzing the most recent polls on the state level thus simulating the process by which Electoral College votes are determined in the actual election Updated throughout the campaign visitors can see who is ahead at any time 1 Instead of the site lying fallow between election cycles the way it did before starting in 2015 the site provides daily commentary continuously On weekends the website focuses more on interacting with readers with Tanenbaum and Bates answering reader questions on Saturdays and posting a mailbag of reader letters on Sundays Several political commenters such as Chris Weigant 2 have noted the helpfulness of the website in aggregating polls state by state in order to predict the outcomes of elections Contents 1 Staff 2 History 2 1 2004 Presidential election 2 2 2006 Senate and House elections 2 3 2008 Presidential Senate and House elections 2 4 2010 Senate and House elections 2 5 2012 Presidential and Senate elections 2 6 2014 Senate elections 2 7 2016 Presidential election 2 8 2018 Senate elections 2 9 2020 Presidential and Senate elections 2 10 2022 Senate elections 3 See also 4 References 5 External linksStaff editThrough most of the 2004 campaign Andrew Tanenbaum went by the alias the Votemaster keeping his identity a secret Tanenbaum is a civil libertarian a member of Democrats Abroad he is a long time resident of the Netherlands and generally supports Democratic candidates for office He revealed his identity on November 1 2004 as well as stating his reasons and qualifications for running the website 3 4 In 2015 Tanenbaum was joined by Christopher Bates who contributes to the site under the name Zenger chosen in honor of John Peter Zenger Their respective contributions are differentiated by V and Z 5 History edit2004 Presidential election edit The site began operating on May 24 2004 with a simple map and a few links to other pages During the months leading up to the 2004 U S Presidential election the site was updated daily to reflect new state polls The site was the most popular election site in the country in the top 1 000 Web sites in the world and in the top 10 blogs in the world citation needed In November 2004 the website had more than 650 000 hits per day 4 The main page consisted of a map of the United States with the individual states colored varying shades of red or blue based on the polls for that state For instance Illinois a state that was polling strongly for Democrat John Kerry was colored dark blue whereas Michigan where Kerry s lead polled by a small margin was colored light blue Analogously Texas was dark red during the whole campaign indicating Bush s strong lead there All of the polling data were provided in multiple formats including HTML Excel and csv for downloading Other features included historical data on previous elections charts and animations showing the polls over the course of time cartograms and links to hundreds of other pages and external Websites with tables charts graphs and other election data and information The main algorithm just used the most recent poll s in every state If two polls came out on the same day they were averaged This algorithm used all published polls including those by partisan pollsters such as Strategic Vision R and Hart Research D A second algorithm used only nonpartisan polls and averaged all polls during the past three days A third algorithm used historical data to predict how undecided voters would break Maps for each of the algorithms were given every day but the first one got most of the publicity since it was on the main page The site s final tracking using algorithm 1 posted on Election Day November 2 gave 262 electoral votes to John Kerry and 261 to George W Bush with 15 tossups 6 The second algorithm averaging 3 days worth of nonpartisan polls gave Kerry 245 and Bush 278 with 15 tossups The third algorithm predicting the undecideds predicted 281 for Kerry and 257 for Bush The actual vote gave Kerry 252 to Bush s 286 Using nonpartisan polls and averaging a few days worth of polls did best This algorithm got 47 states plus D C right 1 state Iowa wrong and said New Mexico and Wisconsin were too close to call The most recent poll wins algorithm got 46 right 4 wrong and one too close to call citation needed 2006 Senate and House elections edit On September 6 2006 the site began tracking the 2006 Congressional elections in the Senate Shortly thereafter the House of Representatives was added The map on the site s front page displayed polling for the 2006 Senate races 7 For House races the site featured a Hot House Races page with links to Wikipedia articles on the candidates links to the candidates official websites and notes on the races 8 The relatively small number of House election polls as well as 2004 s House vote totals were used to project the makeup of the House on the site s front page 7 The site correctly predicted the winners in all 33 Senate races 2008 Presidential Senate and House elections edit In late December 2006 the site began its 2008 coverage which included the presidential race all 33 Senate races and about 40 House races that had been close in 2006 and were expected to be highly contested in 2008 For each of the known presidential senatorial and House candidates a photo was given linked to the candidate s Wikipedia entry along with a brief description of the candidate and race The site also had four new maps one showing the 2004 presidential election one showing the governors by state one showing the senate by state and finally one showing the House delegations by state Polling data was presented daily beginning in December 2007 with data from the primaries Polling data was presented daily on the likely outcome of the primaries as well as upcoming trends 9 The site s electoral vote prediction for the 2008 election was very close to the actual outcome correctly projecting the winner of every state except for Indiana and showing Missouri won by John McCain by only 0 13 of the vote as a pure tossup 10 The Senate projection was also close to the actual outcome predicting 34 of the 35 decided states correctly including correctly showing a Democratic pickup in Alaska and incorrectly showing the Republican Senator Norm Coleman holding his seat in Minnesota 11 The Senate results of the Minnesota election was so close that it was contested until the state supreme court ruled in favor of Al Franken on June 30 2009 2010 Senate and House elections edit In 2010 the site projected 51 seats held by Democrats 48 by Republicans and 1 by Lisa Murkowski a Republican running a write in campaign It was incorrect about Colorado and Nevada which instead went to Democrats It projected 202 House seats held by Democrats 216 seats held by Republicans with 17 too close to call The actual outcome was 195 Democrats and 240 Republicans 2012 Presidential and Senate elections edit In 2012 the site projected the electoral votes for Barack Obama and Mitt Romney and the Senate Its final analysis predicted 303 electoral votes for Obama and 220 for Romney with 15 votes North Carolina s too close to call The actual outcome was 332 to 206 North Carolina went to Romney but Florida instead went to Obama Its final projection for the Senate was 51 seats held by Democrats 45 by Republicans 1 by independent Angus King an ally of the Democrats and 3 too close to call Montana Wyoming North Dakota Montana and North Dakota elected Democrats 2014 Senate elections edit In 2014 the site projected 47 Senate seats held by Democrats 52 by Republicans and 1 too close to call Kansas The actual outcome was 46 Democrats and 54 Republicans with Kansas and North Carolina instead going to Republicans 2016 Presidential election edit Tanenbaum resumed updating the site in 2015 with daily commentary on the presidential candidates joined in September by UCLA trained historian Christopher Bates During the primaries the site tracked the leading candidates expected delegate counts and progress toward nomination After the primaries it began projections based on the polling to date The site projected that Hillary Clinton would receive 317 electoral votes and Donald Trump would receive 215 compared to the actual upset result 232 for Clinton and 306 for Trump Following the election Tanenbaum and Bates updated the site with daily links to news items and commentary about them Years later they noted that Trump s victory was the most shocking upset in their experience following politics 2018 Senate elections edit In early September 2018 the site began tracking polling information for Senate races The site projected 48 Senate seats held by Democrats 50 by Republicans and 2 too close to call Arizona and Missouri The actual outcome was 47 Democrats and 53 Republicans with Florida and Indiana instead going to Republicans 2020 Presidential and Senate elections edit In 2020 the site projected the electoral votes for Joe Biden and Donald Trump and the Senate Its final analysis predicted 350 electoral votes for Biden and 170 for Trump with 18 votes Ohio s too close to call Bates predicted that Trump would carry Ohio but Biden would receive one of Nebraska s votes for a final tally of 351 187 Tanenbaum was more cautious about predicting the outcome in toss up states but did predict a Biden victory 12 The actual outcome was 306 to 232 North Carolina and Florida both went to Trump rather than Biden along with one of Maine s votes The website s final projection for the Senate was 54 seats held by Democrats 46 by Republicans 13 The actual outcome was a 50 50 senate because 4 states Montana Iowa North Carolina and Maine elected Republicans rather than Democrats 2022 Senate elections edit This article needs to be updated Please help update this article to reflect recent events or newly available information August 2022 See also editFivethirtyeight com Real Clear Politics United States Electoral CollegeReferences edit Poll crazy The Guardian Retrieved 9 July 2019 Weigant Chris 26 October 2020 Electoral Math The Final Stretch ChrisWeigant com Retrieved 2 August 2022 The Votemaster FAQ a b Harvard Flocks to Electoral Vote Site News the Harvard Crimson Votemaster FAQ Electoral Vote Predictor archive from Nov 2 Archived from the original on 2008 10 25 Retrieved 2008 10 23 a b Electoral vote com The Hot House Races Archived 2006 10 20 at the Wayback Machine at electoral vote com It s going to be a photo finish The West Georgian 2008 01 16 Archived from the original on 2011 07 17 Electoral vote com President Senate House Updated Daily Senate Map ElectoralVote www electoral vote com Retrieved 2022 08 02 2020 Senate Races electoral vote com Retrieved 2022 08 02 External links editOfficial website nbsp Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Electoral vote com amp oldid 1105797073, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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