Slate/Votecastr real time election projections

[The Free North]

Source for those figures??

[The Free North]

If I'm reading those early voting projections correctly...oh dear god.

I know right. They look absolutely terrifying for Clinton. Worse yet, there is really no way to compare to 2012.

Does anyone have 2012 EV data?

[The Free North]

Wow IA, OH, and FL all look good for trump.


Wisconsin looks like a mess for him though, but we knew that.

[The Free North]

Slates Maps are absolutely infuriating. I cant see Clark County or Miami-Dade since the damn thing is off the bottom of the map and I cant scroll down.

[The Free North]

Slates Maps are absolutely infuriating. I cant see Clark County or Miami-Dade since the damn thing is off the bottom of the map and I cant scroll down.

A map? Where? Anybody have a link?

Votecastr....slate...maps

http://www.slate.com/votecastr_election_day_turnout_tracker.html

[The Free North]

The process by which these maps are made is still incredibly murky to me.

[The Free North]

Guys calm the f**k down, you're extrapolating from small estimates and with Pennsylvania, the early vote is very strict. Stop panicking.

No one is taking PA seriously nor any of this yet since, again. I don't think anyone has any idea what the data they're showing actually represents.

[The Free North]

I'm not sure what Arch's activities were on that thread, but I know that I invested nothing in those numbers. All they showed were early and absentee voting by party identification; that didn't prove anything to me in terms of votes for Clinton or Trump.

So you are saying, you weren't "projecting" NV, CO and VA in to Clinton's pocket based on EV. Or Florida?

This model does basically the same, but uses sophisticated algorithms. Obama used similar

Well that was my point earlier. If this represents early votes around the state, then we can extrapolate a bit on that given historical voting tendencies and the like.

But that is a big 'if'.

[The Free North]

Jon Ralston ‏@RalstonReports  37s38 seconds ago
So Stein on the ballot here (she's not), bizarre Clark numbers and wrong number (off by 150K) of reg voters there. Model probs, @votecastr?

Everyone relax.

Its a model. It includes Stein but doesnt account for the fact that shes not on the ballot. In NV that might skew the numbers of course, but it doesnt say much about the strength of their analysis regarding Trump and Clinton and the numbers overall. Now if the inputs (voter registration, etc) are completely off then you have a 'garbage in - garbage out' scenario which means all of this is just nonsense and that is possible as well.

[The Free North]

I just think this whole thing looks like trash. It's a failed experiment.

Or its the greatest thing ever and we'll be making fun of people who thought it was garbage for weeks after this is all over.

[The Free North]

They are missing votes both there and in Florida. 

I know they are. But they are using voter file for EV in all states, right?

If it was a good model it should.  Considering how bad it is so far I doubt it.

What, specifically, has been so awful about it so far? Do we know there are systematic issues in the algorithms they are running or the data they are pulling? We know some of the data is a bit off perhaps, but do you have tonights results to compare the current projections too? Because if you don't I really don't think its wise to label it as a 'good' or 'bad' model at this point.

[The Free North]

Also, Ive noticed that in this model its showing Trump over performing romney in Orange, Osceola, yet under performing him in Duval?

How likely is that to be true?

No one has any idea since what you're seeing is early votes and a lot of noise.

[The Free North]

They are missing votes both there and in Florida. 

I know they are. But they are using voter file for EV in all states, right?

If it was a good model it should.  Considering how bad it is so far I doubt it.

What, specifically, has been so awful about it so far? Do we know there are systematic issues in the algorithms they are running or the data they are pulling? We know some of the data is a bit off perhaps, but do you have tonights results to compare the current projections too? Because if you don't I really don't think its wise to label it as a 'good' or 'bad' model at this point.

It is missing three million votes in Florida, about one hundred thousand in Nevada.  Has people as options that aren't on the ballot, and options that are are not mention.  Any person who makes a model should know these things and have them in it.

By 'missing' I assume you are referring to the voter registration numbers they have?

[The Free North]

They are missing votes both there and in Florida. 

I know they are. But they are using voter file for EV in all states, right?

If it was a good model it should.  Considering how bad it is so far I doubt it.

What, specifically, has been so awful about it so far? Do we know there are systematic issues in the algorithms they are running or the data they are pulling? We know some of the data is a bit off perhaps, but do you have tonights results to compare the current projections too? Because if you don't I really don't think its wise to label it as a 'good' or 'bad' model at this point.

It's almost impossible to talk about how good the model is until the polls close in a specific state. At that point the "game" is over and the model should forecast the result well before the networks do. The exception is CO where the votes are cast by mail so they should be coming in as an unbiased sample so that is the best test of the model before polls close.

Well that was my point. It seems a bit unwise to talk about the strength or weakness of a model before we have any substantive results to compare it to and while we can nitpick things about its process and data input, there is nothing beyond that we can sink our teeth into. I have no idea how good this data is, but I don't think we can throw it out the window right now.

[The Free North]

Haha, Dems were OK with CO projection, where Hillary did much better than Obama, but now it a trash because of Nevada

CO is not a projection, it is the modeled vote of individual people matched against the voter file who have already actually voted.

This is apparently different from other states where they do not have voter file individual level data on who has voted, but only know the total # of people who have voted in particular precincts (but not necessarily which individuals have voted in those precincts).

And including Stein in Nevada is of course obviously a dumb screw up.

And there is a difference in what early vote means in different states.

So basically there are large differences in what they are reporting for different states.

But those with large EV, as Nevada? Does they not use voter file for EV there?

As I undrstand they use voter file for all EV?

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So it is projection. By using voter file. Other only by their model of turnout and polls

Well, it is not a projection of who is going to win the state. It is a projection of how the particular individuals that they know already voted have voted. That projection is extrapolated from a large phone poll (much larger sample size than normal polls) they did before the election, calling people in the voter file. Unlike in a regular poll, they record who each individual says they are going to support. They can then cross reference this with all the demographic information they have about each voter who answered the poll in the voter file - things they have hard data for like age, gender, vote history, and other things that are not filled out by the voter on their voter registration form in most states and so are usually modeled (like race and ethnicity), and possibly other commercial data on each person. Then basically they run more sophisticated versions of a regression of which candidate people support against their demographic characteristics. This then gives them estimated probabilities that each individual in the voter file supports each candidate.

But they can only do this when they have individual level data on which particular people have voted (like they apparently do for CO, but not other states).

So for other states where they only have a raw total count of how many people voted in each precinct, they basically just take the average support score of registered voters in that precinct multiplied by their turnout score, and then that gives them an estimate of what the vote is in that precinct. Since this is not individual level data of who has actually voted, this can be biased, since it relies on people accurately self-reporting their likelihood to vote (and self-reported voting intention is not accurate).

What I am describing is basically what Obama's campaign did. I am presuming that they are in fact doing the same thing, since that is what they say they are doing, and since Sasha Issenberg is apparently a founder of Votecastr.

So the bottom line is it is (presuming it is done properly, like Obama's campaign did) very accurate for the voters/states you have individual level turnout data for, but less so for the voters/states that you only have aggregated turnout data for.

Spot on, great post.

[The Free North]

Boo no more maps.

[The Free North]

where are y'all finding maps?

They took them doom presumably because people where misinterpreting what they were showing.