I could've sworn one state split theirs in 2000, voting 3 and 3 instead of all 6 going one way.

The only two states that do the splitting is NE and ME, and both were completely won by Bush and Gore, respectively. It has happened in past elections, however...

I think the last time it happened was in 1960. Alabama split its votes between Kennedy and Byrd. In 1956 Mississippi gave up some votes and indipandant. Not sure of his name.

It was a much more common practice in the 1800s for state electors to split.

wow, kerry has his strongest lead since the polling started in may today.

kerry 332
bush 195

there's been a pretty steady increase of kerry's and steady decline of bush's since the beginning of july.

The electoral college was put in effect with the hopes from our founding fathers that the House would elect the gov. They figured that candidates from each state would run, win their respective state, and no one would get enough votes letting the house decide the president. They just didn't trust the people. However, little did they know they were just giving birth to what is known as the two party system. It's not the best way, but it's still a pretty damn good one. By splitting up states we'd only be making it harder for one of the main 2 to get elected by the people if the country was divided 50-50 like the last election.

In New Jersey, where Kerry will win, i have seen numerous Bush ads but no Kerry ads. Not sure if its the programs i watch or just he figures he's already got it won.

I look at polls but essentially they're always changing and the only ones that matter are the ones in November...

Then there's the issue of low population states being over represented by the electoral college. Each vote is equal to x number of voters. States like (I think) OK and SD that have fewer than x voters still get 1 electoral vote.

Don't know that it makes that much difference, but it's not 100% representitive.

that's a very good point.

http://www.electoral-vote.com/info/states.html

here they show the number of voters per electoral vote. California has the highest and then it basically goes down as population goes down. There's nearly 4 times as many voters for each californian electoral vote as there are for each wyoming electoral vote!

Also remember that states like SD typically have no influence on the election. In fact even though the voters in SD have more voting power than voters in california the people in SD get almost no campaining.

How do SD voters have more voting power?

these are just generic statistics.

State X has 30 million people and has 15 electoral votes

State Y has 500,000 people and has 1 electoral vote.

State X overally affects the election more, but every voter in State Y is basically four times as valuable as every vote in State X.

Electoral votes aren't dolled out evenly for a set amount of people, Each state has a different number per vote, (depending on turnout) In the end the smaller the state, the more heavily weighted your vote is.

With polls changing daily, maps like these are interesting, but not truly accurate. For example, Arizona is listed as stongly Bush. This is probably based on a poll done a couple of weeks ago showing Bush with at 12% point lead (+/- 4%) . Yesterday the same group released figures putting Kerry at 42% and Bush 41%. All in all this looks like it is going to be a nail biter.

actually if you go to the website they talk specifically about that poll and they have updated the map accordingly :).

and they are moving to a new map format that gives the percentage results when you rollover a state with the mouse.

It would be really cool if they did a 'radar loop' animation of the changes over time, but that would probably be more bandwidth than they could afford.

http://www.electoral-vote.com/jul/jul22.gif

July 22: Kerry 332 Bush 195

I'm feeling pretty confident going into the convention with the spread like this - hopefully Kerry will be able to tighten up those weak states, and pull the barely's more firmly into his column.

I have almost no faith in this map. Polls are ridiculously flawed and have no real relevance. They are simply highly subjective gauges of where attention should be focused.

If the daily change is THAT significant, I'd have to agree with onetime2. The change must be showing sampling anomalies as much as actual change. I don't think there are that many people making up changing their minds on a daily basis. Of course, I'll still be watching with interest.

I think the changes are more attributable to using different polls' results and not respondents' giving different answers at different times.

Here's my biggest concern about polls: the self-selected sample. I know that when I get a phone call that starts "Hi, I'm doing a survey on behalf of...", I get off of the phone as quickly as possible. So, the polls are only those people who are bored enough to tell a complete stranger their beliefs.

Or those eager enough to spend the time to show their support for their guy.

Yes, they do try to keep up, but my point is that we are still 3+ months out and the electorate is not decided. We usually see these maps in the closing days of the election, but now we seem to live by them. The mere fact that they have to constantly change the information supports my point that while they are interesting, you should not live or die by the info.


All that being said, today they say that Kerry is winning the electoral college, so I think all Bush supporters should just give up and not bother voting, I mean what is the point, Kerry is winning. '

something that was not mentioned about the electoral college was that while it is used to enforce the rights of the majority it is also to protect the rights of the minority

(i wish my rights were better protected i'm not allowed to walk backwards after 2 am)

/shakes head

Start of the thread: 7/16/04, Kerry = 312, Bush = 215

From the same website that started this thread:

Today (9/20/04): Kerry = 211, Bush = 327

That is rather dramatic for a two month period.

Even more interesting is the commentary below the map written by this guy

Edit: Already been done