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And...Down the Stretch They Come

By now, you should have heard of electoral-vote.com. If not, you should check it out. It displays the electoral vote outcome based on the somewhat fuzzy logic that only the most recent polls matter. I'm no statistician, but it seems that the melange of polling data results in the electoral equivalent of comparing apples and oranges.

In any case, the site is useful for tracking general trends and it's kind of fun to watch the final tally swing wildly back and forth in each candidate's favor (much more fun than actually listening to the mud-slinging going on right now). Now, the genius behind this site has put together a map predicting the final results (updated as conditions warrant) based on the following pseudo-scientific assumptions:

1. Voters currently preferring Bush or Kerry will actually vote for them.
2. Nader will get 1% where he is on the ballot, 0% where he is not.
3. The minor candidates (Cobb, Badnarik, Peroutka, etc.) will get 1% total.
4. The undecideds will go for Kerry 2:1

That all seems perfectly reasonable to me except for the last one. It's a solid assumption based on historical data, but this election may not fit into the pattern so easily. Based on my decidedly unscientific gut feeling, I suspect that the ratio will still favor Kerry, but by a much narrower margin. In any case, it's going to be close. Get out your presidential bingo cards and prepare for a wild ride on election night!