Slate will be publishing first ever 'real-time' election day vote count - Polidicks

[url]http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2016/09/slate_and_votecastr_are_teaming_up_to_publish_real_time_projections_on_election.html[/url] [quote]Now a de-facto self-imposed gag order hangs over the daylight hours of the year’s biggest news event, sequestering the civic exercise of Election Day from the media spectacle of election night. This distinction is enforced only by the pieties of good-government advocates who, in the wake of the 1980 episode, paternalistically argued that voters cannot be trusted with live information. Now newsrooms show long lines, interview people with “I voted” stickers, speculate about the impact of the weather—but refuse to tell the public who is winning and who is losing. Once the polls close, there is intense competition for their decision desks to call states, but up until that point news organizations enforce what amounts to a cartel of silence. To pick up Newsweek’s metaphor, on the biggest news day of the year, news organizations offer an interminable pregame show and then flip to the final score, skipping the Super Bowl itself. Campaigns, however, do know who is winning the game as it is being played. They have never relied on exit polls, which were designed to illuminate who voted and why, for the benefit of postelection analysis, not to predict results in real time. Instead, candidates, parties, and super PACs use a combination of analytics and active tracking of turnout across preselected precincts to produce rolling projections of how many votes they have won as the ballots are cast. They have found this method to be uncannily accurate at matching the ultimate vote count. Voters have never had access to such analytics, but there is no reason that journalists can’t apply the same methods as the campaigns—and there are very good reasons why doing so is in the public interest. A group of election veterans has therefore come together to form a new company called Votecastr, in which I am a partner, and we are building our own version of that Election Day data apparatus. In partnership with Slate, Votecastr will publicly debut its system on Nov. 8. From the moment that polls open on the East Coast, Slate readers will know as much about how many votes Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump have accumulated across the battleground states as Hillary and Donald and their teams do. Our goal is not to beat the networks and wire services to declaring winners and losers—election night will still belong to their analysts and their magic walls—but to guarantee that citizens who have been entrusted with a vote also have access to as much information as possible about how their fellow citizens are voting.[/quote] This will either be hella fuckin interesting, or completely inaccurate and nothing but a right laugh and total embarrassment for all involved [editline]13th September 2016[/editline] Not sure I understand the claim that "campaigns always know when they're going to win and now you will too" though. Mitt Romney thought he'd won when the polls closed and famously only wrote a victory speech.

posting a relevant tweet thread from a former political strategist for the bush campaign: [media]https://twitter.com/PatrickRuffini/status/774759734683525124[/media] [media]https://twitter.com/PatrickRuffini/status/774760342752727040[/media] [media]https://twitter.com/PatrickRuffini/status/774760856752185344[/media] [media]https://twitter.com/PatrickRuffini/status/774761699341639680[/media] [media]https://twitter.com/PatrickRuffini/status/774762102443614208[/media] this is incredibly irresponsible. the reason journalists don't report on this is because at times that they have, there were reports of people leaving voting lines thinking their candidate had lost (though there is no concrete evidence that this information actually suppresses voter turnout) and many of the major news networks were brought before congress for multiple hearings. in an election as crazy as this was one has already been, we don't need another stupid wrench thrown in it.

I'm worried that, if this is completely ridiculously wrong, it will be used to back up allegations of vote rigging in the way that inaccurate exit polls were used in the Democratic primary

Wait, they mean they're going to count the votes [i]while[/i] people are still voting? That's completely ridiculous! Surely they should only be counting the votes after everyone has voted. As someone has said, this is another aspect of this election that is going to be utterly ridiculous. Ara come on lads, get your shite together for once.

[QUOTE=BlackMageMari;51043213]Wait, they mean they're going to count the votes [i]while[/i] people are still voting? That's completely ridiculous! Surely they should only be counting the votes after everyone has voted. As someone has said, this is another aspect of this election that is going to be utterly ridiculous. Ara come on lads, get your shite together for once.[/QUOTE] No, these guys are going to look at turnout throughout the day and cross-reference with demographics to try and figure out the results before any actual counting begins

[QUOTE=smurfy;51043298]No, these guys are going to look at turnout throughout the day and cross-reference with demographics to try and figure out the results before any actual counting begins[/QUOTE] Ah, not quite as bad as I thought. Still, it sounds farce-icul to even attempt that. Surely you'd want to wait and just, I don't know, report the counting as it comes in? But it sounds like they're unable to do that. They're threading on dangerous waters from what it sounds like regardless.

Normally I would call this thing a failure, and just move on...However, Trump has basically convinced his supporters the vote will be rigged, and basically this things happens. Put two and two together, this is going to be shit.

[QUOTE=TheHydra;51043001] this is incredibly irresponsible. the reason journalists don't report on this is because at times that they have, there were reports of people leaving voting lines thinking their candidate had lost (though there is no concrete evidence that this information actually suppresses voter turnout) and many of the major news networks were brought before congress for multiple hearings. in an election as crazy as this was one has already been, we don't need another stupid wrench thrown in it.[/QUOTE] At least Slate isn't a major news organization. I doubt Trump supporters are going to base whether or not they go out and vote on what [I]Slate[/I] is saying. I doubt Hillary supporters are going to stop going to the polls if Slate says Trump is in the lead by large margin. Isn't Slates user demographic pretty narrow? Basically just young American internet-using Liberals? This isn't going to even make it to the ears of your average American voter. (older people) The biggest risk here is Slate making a fool out of themselves.

[QUOTE=OvB;51044031]At least Slate isn't a major news organization. I doubt Trump supporters are going to base whether or not they go out and vote on what [I]Slate[/I] is saying. I doubt Hillary supporters are going to stop going to the polls if Slate says Trump is in the lead by large margin. Isn't Slates user demographic pretty narrow? Basically just young American internet-using Liberals? This isn't going to even make it to the ears of your average American voter. (older people) The biggest risk here is Slate making a fool out of themselves.[/QUOTE] I think it will definitely get passed around a lot on the day, because what else is there to talk about while everyone's voting? But I agree, hopefully any effects will be mitigated by Slate's relative obscurity

[QUOTE=smurfy;51043298]No, these guys are going to look at turnout throughout the day and cross-reference with demographics to try and figure out the results before any actual counting begins[/QUOTE] That's actually fantastic. If they can show or demonstrate their statistical analysis, we could have some very interesting viewing.