 2004 Presidential Election
Electoral-vote.com: "We have another bumper crop of polls today, 50 in all. Since Sept. 1, the total number of polls in the Polling data file is 937. Toss in another 252 polls from May 24 to Aug. 31 and we have the most studied election in the history of the world. And what's the conclusion? Nobody knows. If we just look at the most recent poll in every state, John Kerry will be elected the 44th President of the United States tomorrow with 298 votes in the electoral college vs. 231 for George Bush, with New Mexico and New Hampshire exact ties. However, even in Bush carries both of these states, Kerry still wins 298 to 240. But again, a caution is in order, Kerry's margin is razor thin in Pennsylvania, Florida, and Ohio. Pennsylvania will probably go to Kerry. Ohio is more iffy. Bush won it in 2000 and stands a decent chance of winning it in 2004 although he trails by 2% using the average of the Zogby and Gallup polls taken Oct. 28-31. Thus after 4 years of campaigning, more money spent on attack ads than the gross national product of small countries, and an exhausted electorate, what do we have? In the immortal words of Yogi Berra: 'It's deja vu all over again.' The whole thing comes down to Florida. where Kerry currently holds a tenuous 48% to 47% lead according to the most recent poll, from Zogby. The reality is that everything depends on turnout, how many voting machines fail, and how much monkey business happens. Oh, yeah. And there are those 10,000 lawyers ready to do what lawyers are trained to do--file lawsuits."
"If Bush picks up Florida and the two states that are tied (NH and NV), then Kerry wins 271 to 267, the same margin Gore should have lost by last time. Actually, he lost 271 to 266 because one Gore elector from D.C., Barbara Lett-Simmons cast a blank ballot in protest of D.C.'s not having representation in Congress. It could be to be a long night, especially if Bush picks up either Florida or Ohio and a couple of small Kerry states in the East or Midwest, so everything depends on New Mexico."
And the question we've all been waiting to have answered Who is behind Electoral-vote.com. Wow, it's Andrew Tanenbaum, the developer of Minix. I wondered how he could be in the U.S. and update so early every morning. He's not, he's in the Netherlands.
Minix helped Linus Torvalds when he was starting out writing GNU/Linux. At the end of his "Votemeister FAQ" Tanenbaum writes, "I am Andrew Tanenbaum and I approved this message."
Josh Marshall: "According to Gallup's mega-final-ultra poll out Sunday evening, 30% of registered voters in Florida have already voted, either through early voting or by absentee. Of those who have already voted, Kerry leads President Bush 51% to 43%. According to the Des Moines Register poll out late Saturday evening, 27% of Iowa adults have already voted. And among those Kerry leads 52% to 41%. Both numbers seem good for Kerry -- though they may mean a lot of different things."
Update: Josh Marshall: "The second national poll released Monday, the Marist poll, has Kerry up by one among likely voters (Kerry 49%, Bush 48%) and tied among registered voters (48%). All calls were made on Sunday."
Update: Josh Marshall: "The final Fox News poll -- with calls on Saturday and Sunday only -- has Kerry over Bush 48% to 46% among likely voters. Among registered voters it's Kerry 47%, Bush 45%. Among those who've already voted, it's Kerry 48%, Bush 43%. Fox has been releasing not a tracking poll, but a new poll every day for the last four days: Friday, Bush +5; Saturday Bush +2; Sunday, tied; Monday, Kerry +2."
Update: The blogosphere is all abuzz about Andrew Tanenbaum's website, Electoral-vote.com. Well actually, bloggers have been pointing to him for weeks and weeks. The buzz is around who he is in Computer Science. Lawrence Lessig writes, "However much he knew about OS architectures, this is an amazing site.".
I emailed Dr. Tanenbaum when I first saw Political Wire link to him. I was joshing him about all the traffic that would now be coming to his website. He answered, calmly, that he had just, "purchased more RAM." Of course. 
6:49:19 AM 
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