Slate/Votecastr real time election projections

[john cage bubblegum]

Other than an additional dump of early vote from FL, the numbers haven't updated since the site went live.  I guess they're still working through some issues running the data?

[Devout Centrist]

Just read their "How It Works" article again.

Only now do I see that this has ZERO exit poll component. This is just yet another pre-election day poll masquerading as actual voting data.

So much for all their hype about breaking the exit poll embargo.

You didn't already realize that? Only Edison Research conducts those.

[Erich Maria Remarque]

Local officials collect and report information about who voted early in each state, and VoteCastr then compares that public info with its own private early voter files.

The key point that is somewhat glossed over is that the "information" that the "local officials" report can be different in different states. In some states, that information may be a list of the voter ID numbers of which specific individuals have already voted. For other states, that "information" may just be a report that 578 voters have voted early in precinct 42, without specifying which particular voters it is who have voted.

Eh. They clearly stated that they would use voter file. If it was only "report that 578 voters have voted early in precinct 42", they'd likely tell us about it.

[muon2]

Just read their "How It Works" article again.

Only now do I see that this has ZERO exit poll component. This is just yet another pre-election day poll masquerading as actual voting data.

So much for all their hype about breaking the exit poll embargo.

You didn't already realize that? Only Edison Research conducts those.

They never said they were breaking the exit poll embargo. They are breaking the embargo on analytical data based on turnout that the networks and campaigns watch all day as the polls are open.

[Erich Maria Remarque]

Other than an additional dump of early vote from FL, the numbers haven't updated since the site went live.  I guess they're still working through some issues running the data?

As I understand, they have right now only EV data. But Florida is so large, that it take time to process all the data. Someone could check, which states match final EV data and which doesn't. Apparently, FL and NV are still not processed fully.

[win win]

Just read their "How It Works" article again.

Only now do I see that this has ZERO exit poll component. This is just yet another pre-election day poll masquerading as actual voting data.

So much for all their hype about breaking the exit poll embargo.

Agree, they use "models" to project what share of voters vote for clinton, vote for Trump based on past polls.

[SirMuxALot]

You didn't already realize that? Only Edison Research conducts those.

Yeah, not until now. I was deceived by their "this is controversial" and their "big networks hold this back" hype.

[Erich Maria Remarque]

You didn't already realize that? Only Edison Research conducts those.

Yeah, not until now. I was deceived by their "this is controversial" and their "big networks hold this back" hype.

You should always start by reading the f**king instruction . Americans

[LimoLiberal]

Not trying to belittle.
How is this different than any twitter account who gets early voting stats and analyzes them? Are they conducting polls? Do they have information the public doesn't have?

[win win]

I;m going to add R+3 to all the slate projections
They have 58 Clinton supporters to 0 Trump supporters on their staff. I expect some bias.

[Devout Centrist]

You didn't already realize that? Only Edison Research conducts those.

Yeah, not until now. I was deceived by their "this is controversial" and their "big networks hold this back" hype.

You should always start by reading the f**king instruction . Americans

F**k Ikea

[bilaps]

VoteCastr ‏@votecastr 9m9 minutes ago

Our Nevada results showed Jill Stein with ~1.7. She was in our survey: we messed up and we are correcting the Nevada results accordingly.

[Angrie]

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).

Are you sure, as I understand, they project early voting in other stated as well.

Projection of early voters. I didn't say anything about projection of who win the state. It is pretty meaningless.

But we can compare their projection of early voting with polls. Some polls ask voters who already voted. For instance if their projections is much Trump-friendly = polls probably underestimate him. And vice versa.

Sorry, what I mean (but forgot to explicitly say) is that once they have the modeled support score for each registered voter in the voter file, they will have data such as Amanda X has a .7 Clinton support score. That means they estimate that there is a 70% probability that Amanda X supports Trump. And they have data that Joe Y has a .4 Clinton support score.

So then if they have individual data for who has voted, they can then just add up each individual's support score and average it by the total number of people who have voted. So for example, if the only 2 people who have voted in a precinct are Amanda X and Joe Y, then the estimated vote is (.7 + .4) / 2 = .55. So they estimate Clinton has 55% support there (out of 2 votes cast, 1.1 votes for Clinton, .9 votes for Trump).

But you can only do this if you know specifically which individuals have voted - if you know that Amanda X and Joe Y are the particular people who have voted.

If you don't know that, but instead just know that 5 people have voted in Precinct Z and 3 people have voted in Precinct Q, then what you do for both of those precincts is to take the support scores of all the registered voters in each of those precincts weighted by their turnout scores, and that gives you your estimated vote percentage in that precinct. Then you can get your statewide or countywide vote estimate by averaging those weighted by the known aggregate turnout in each precinct. For example, if the average turnout-score weighted support-score in precinct Z is .7 Trump and for precinct Q is .2 Trump, then the estimated vote would be .7 * 5 + .2 * 3 = 4.1 votes estimated for Trump. Since there are a total of 8 votes, that then means 3.9 estimated votes for Clinton (not counting 3rd parties for this example).

So that is what they do for states that have early vote, but in which the state does not report to them which particular individuals have early voted.

[The Other Castro]

Nate Cohn article on this: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/08/upshot/you-may-need-a-strong-stomach-for-the-pitfalls-of-real-time-election-projections.html?_r=0

"Don't throw up because of the Slate/Votecastr live projections"

[bilaps]

Nate Cohn article on this: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/08/upshot/you-may-need-a-strong-stomach-for-the-pitfalls-of-real-time-election-projections.html?_r=0

"Don't throw up because of the Slate/Votecastr live projections"

yeah, like we didn't throw up when his model showed clinton +7 in NC

[dspNY]

FL looks really good for Clinton

[muon2]

I'm off now for a while. I have to go collect some midday turnout counts to send in to party HQ to feed into our models. Just like votecastr is doing.

[Erich Maria Remarque]

Not trying to belittle.
How is this different than any twitter account who gets early voting stats and analyzes them? Are they conducting polls? Do they have information the public doesn't have?

As I understand. They conducted a poll with huge sample size, so it could be well calibrated proportionally to voter file. Geographically, party registration, age, etc, those who voted in 2012/2014, those who didn't etc. They probably use even more sophisticated voter modelling.

Then they use those voters as LV screen. If 4% of 20-25 years old white female Trumpistas from Las Vegas voted early and 15% on ED. They extrapolate this data on all voters voted so far in EV and ED respectively.

So yeah, it is just a really big poll, similar to those from Upshot/Sienna.

[Angrie]

Eh. They clearly stated that they would use voter file. If it was only "report that 578 voters have voted early in precinct 42", they'd likely tell us about it.

At least historically it has varied by state/locality what they report, and what format they report it in. I don't know which particularly states report what at this point on the early vote - which are reporting exactly which individuals have voted, and which are reporting only an aggregated count. Since they said specifically this was the case for CO, we know that, but we should not assume that it is the case for states that they have not specifically said this.

But for the election day vote, all of it should be just this aggregated count using the method I described, coming from observers they have at selected precincts in each state.

[Erich Maria Remarque]

Nate Cohn article on this: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/08/upshot/you-may-need-a-strong-stomach-for-the-pitfalls-of-real-time-election-projections.html?_r=0

"Don't throw up because of the Slate/Votecastr live projections"

Live during the day, yeah. But now they are estimating EV. You know, the stuff that you all did in    "absentee/early vote thread"

The only difference, is that they have data-science education. So their model is likely better

[PresidentTRUMP]

Early word out of FL, its going Hillary. It's over if true.

[The Other Castro]

Early word out of FL, its going Hillary. It's over if true.

EV looks good for her, but no point calling anything while polls are still open for hours.

[win win]

Before people take Slate seriously, remember they have 58 staffers who vote Clinton and none for Trump.

[Yank2133]

Early word out of FL, its going Hillary. It's over if true.

EV looks good for her, but no point calling anything while polls are still open for hours.

This.

FL is always close. EV looks good for Hillary, but polls don't close till seven......lots of time left.

[Devout Centrist]

Before people take Slate seriously, remember they have 58 staffers who vote Clinton and none for Trump.

Slate isn't behind this model