Here is an interesting site, called the Swing State Project. The site examines the swing states, defined as votes in 2000 for (Gore + Nader) – (Bush + Buchanan) < ±10%. They have used the data provided here for the determination of the swing states. Note the familiar map – and thanks for the compliment 🙂
Monthly Archives: October 2003
New Threads in Old Forum
I have disabled the ability to create new threads in the old forum pages. Please start all new discussions in the new forum environment. Thanks.
New Forum!
I have installed a new forum based on the php/mysql open-source implemenation YABB SE. This will be a little painful, as you will need to reregister to use the new forum. Also, I don’t yet know of a way to import the old threads and posts.
There are a number of reasons for upgrading:
– more features!
– better reliability (old forum has a bug that “loses” threads)
– easier to remove problem posters
– hopefully faster!
– Party/Home State Avatars! (will be uploaded soon).
I encourage you to migrate to the new forum soon because I will begin locking threads in the old forum. I will keep it around only as an archive. Please feel free (as always) to provide feedback and comment on the new implementation.
Maine Maps
I just discovered a small error in the Maine county map boundaries for the elections 1980 – 2000. It turns out that the town of Otisfield seceded from Cumberland County in 1978 and joined Oxford County. I have now refelected this border change in the appropriate maps.
It appears to be a very rare occurance for towns to switch counties. I don’t know of another example for New England towns in the 20th Century. In 1890, New Shoreham, RI (Block Island) changed from Newport to Washington County. Anyone know of other examples?
California Recall!
Well, the California Recall is over. Preliminary results are in and it appears to be a solid victory for the recall and for Schwarzenegger. The top republican challenger received 47.8% of the overall vote and carried 50 of California’s 58 counties – including the populous counties of Los Angeles, San Diego, Orange, Riverside, and Sacramento. Interestingly, Schwarzenegger actually received slightly more votes than “no” votes on the recall (subject to change as more votes are tallied). Schwarzenegger’s best showing was in Sutter County (64.5%)
Bustamante’s support was limited to the San Francisco Bay area (although he lost Contra Costa County by a slight 0.44%). Bustamante’s best showing was in San Francisco (63.4%).
McClintock placed a solid third with 13.2% (he placed second in eight counties and fourth in one). His best showing was Stanislaus County with 23.9%. It appears that many of the more conservative counties opted for the more socially liberal Schwarzenegger over the more conservative McClintock.
Camejo placed fourth with 2.8% – barely half of his showing in 2002. His best county was Humboldt with 7.2%.
Overall, three counties were won with < 40% of the vote – Bustamante in Mendocino , Schwarzenegger in Contra Costa and Napa.
Note that it will take many days for all the ballots to be counted. A final tally will be posted on the site following the certification of the vote by the California Secretary of State.
CA Recall Ready!
The files for the 2003 California Recall are now available. You may access them through the link below the “Special Features” heading on the home page. I plan to have the preliminary unofficial results posted early Wednesday morning. I won’t be a “real-time” source of data… but will have nice graphs and maps. Please feel free to comment on the implementation… I still have a little time to make modifications.
Site Outage
Yesterday, I accidentally enabled site autorization… requiring visitors to enter a password to access the site. This was an error and was corrected this morning. I apologize to those who were unable to access the material during this time.