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Well there goes any somewhat reliable election forecasting for the US
by greesil 3y ago
Well there goes any somewhat reliable election forecasting for the US
- justinsaccount 3y agoThe very idea of election forecasting is harmful to democracy and should be shunned wherever it appears.
- t-writescode 3y agoIf it's not being done in public, it's absolutely being done in private. Do you believe democratizing that data is a bad thing?
- creato 3y agoYes, it’s quite possible that “democratizing” election forecasts is bad. A public forecast may influence the likelihood of voting while a private forecast would not.
- Scubabear68 3y agoI don’t think this is the case at all. The whole purpose of private forecasting is to judge how your efforts are doing with the electorate, and adjust your strategy, poll/assess again, rinse and repeat. They don’t just forecast and shrug at the results.
- spartanatreyu 3y agoNot having public forecasting influences voting. Either way votes are going to be influenced. The benefit of democratizing those forecasts is to reduce surprises / rigged election accusations.
- dalyons 3y agothis is an interesting take. why do you say that?
- orev 3y agoIt’s pretty easy: if someone is projected to win, voters who were planning to vote for that person might stay home to avoid “wasting their time” since they’re going to win anyway. Then that person doesn’t win because the voters didn’t show up.
- LgWoodenBadger 3y agoOr conversely, people don’t go out and vote for their candidate because their candidate is projected to lose.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- SllX 3y agoPeople are going to make their own electoral decisions on their own terms, whether you, or I or anyone else agrees with them or how they came about their decisions. That’s about as democratic as it gets. Forecasts can inform those decisions, but they don’t decide them. EDIT: I have no love for iOS’s tendency to capitalize “democratic” or “republican” against my wishes.
- peteradio 3y agoWhich is remarkably stupid considering election day is voting for dozens or more positions.
- hattmall 3y agoIt's really not there's a lot of places where publishing polls is illegal. Public opinion is easily influenced by perception of public opinion. That's basically all of style, design and fashion, and polls can always be crafted to get the results you want or outright lie. Also what actual benefit does it serve to poll before elections if not to influence the outcome. I think maybe internal polling could be ok. But is it? Should politicians have their positions and push them, why should they change or hide their views in response to polling. We should be able to vote on unfiltered versions of politicians not people who are malleable to whatever will let them win.
- Multicomp 3y agoWhile I readily admit to feeling like my comment could be seen as sealioning, but could you post some links and/or search terms I could use to try to research why one might hold an opinion like this? I don't know whether to agree or disagree with this; I'm new enough to not have come across this particular opinion before (that I've noticed).
- justinsaccount 3y agoIt's simple: Election forecasting is often used as a form of voter manipulation, if not outright suppression. People should vote for the candidate that they want to win, not the candidate that the tv says has a better chance of winning.
- fshbbdssbbgdd 3y agoIsn’t the 538 approach of rigorous modeling a lot less likely to be manipulation than than the often vibes-based approach it replaced? Their predictions are based on actual polling, so they won’t take a candidate with real support and propaganda the support away with their forecasts.
- justinsaccount 3y agoWhat purpose does predicting the outcome of an election serve in a democracy?
- fshbbdssbbgdd 3y agoPeople want predictions for various reasons, but in general, predictions are good for making plans and preparing for the future. Elections are just one of many examples of an outcome you might want to predict, alongside crop yields, population growth, product sales, etc. I don’t have any deep thoughts about how these predictions serve democracy, but if people are interested in that line of inquiry, they should go ahead and pursue it.
- jen20 3y ago
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- whakim 3y agoIronically, FiveThirtyEight actually reviewed the literature on the effects of polling blackouts and concluded that the evidence was complicated and mixed. (See https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/does-knowing-whom-others-might-vote-for-change-whom-youll-vote-for/ https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/does-knowing-whom-other....)
- rhaway84773 3y agoI don’t think reliable forecasting is gone. Nate Silver does not bring any new data to the table. However, he does have good models to translate a whole bunch of raw, often contradictory, data into something more representative of reality. That being said, it’s not going anywhere. He will either self publish or join another firm. He might rejoin NYTimes for example.
- greesil 3y agoThat's heartening. Mainstream media election coverage is infuriating. Nate is the antidote for me.
- nwiswell 3y agohttps://election.princeton.edu/ https://election.princeton.edu/
- akio 3y agoPrinceton had Clinton at a >99% chance in their 2016 election forecast.
- kadoban 3y agoYeah, they used the obviously bad model that each state's results are independent rolls of the dice. Which, flawed models can still be useful, but I seem to recall them being pretty arrogant about their prediction in 2016 too, before the fact.