Here’s a very cool comic strip from my friend Tom Neely .

(click on the image for a larger version)

I was about to write a post about why I don’t think the Bradley Effect is worth worrying about, but then I found this Newsweek article by Nate Silver that makes the exact same points :

There is little doubt Obama is losing some votes due to his race; a recent Associated Press survey suggested that as many as 6 percent of the electorate may be voting against Obama because he is black. But that’s not what the Bradley effect is about. As long as those prejudiced voters are telling pollsters that they’re going to vote for McCain, their sentiments will be reflected accurately in the polling. The Bradley effect emerges when voters tell pollsters one thing and then do another at the ballot booth.

So the question is why, if a voter does not intend to vote for Obama, would he or she feel compelled to lie about it? There are perfectly legitimate reasons not to vote for Obama; a voter who wanted to vote against him because of his race would have little trouble rationalizing his vote. If a voter felt compelled to lie to a pollster, he might tell them that he was voting against Obama because of his inexperience or his liberal politics—when, in fact, he was voting against him because of his race. But the pollster would still tally the vote correctly in the McCain column. By contrast, in cases where the Bradley effect existed, including Bradley’s race itself, the black candidate was as much or more experienced than the white opponent. So voters found it harder to excuse their racism and may have misstated their voting intention to pollsters as a result.

The racist voters have already been accounted for. They’re the dicks who swear they aren’t judging Barack Obama because of his skin color, but are very concerned about the fact that he “pals around with terrorists” or that he’s a “socialist” or just can’t vote for an “Arab” and a “Muslim” (because religious and ethnic bigotry is perfectly acceptable for conservative Christians). They’re disgusting, but I have a feeling they’re already being counted in the polls.

Send this link to your family and friends :

http://maps.google.com/vote

All you have to do is type in your address and it’ll show you on a map where your polling place is. Very, very cool.

Also, for my fellow Southern Californians who want to vote early, it’s gonna much less convenient that it has been in the past. Unlike previous years, there’s only one polling place and it’s in the middle on nowhere (boo!). LAist has some details on why LA County early voting is such a pain in the ass this year :

If you remember, LA County used to have those early voting touch screen machines, but after the Secretary of State’s new regulations forcing 100% of results to be manually counted, the county found that too unfeasible to do with current resources. And if the county were to deploy more early voting locations using a paper based system, ballot security and ballot styles become an issue, LA County’s Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk Dean Logan told LAist.

In this election, there are 706 different variations, or styles, of the ballot. Depending on where you live, your ballot will carry different local measures and elected officials. With that many styles, imagine the resources and security needed to manage that. So until this is figured out in future years, which Logan says they will consider in the future, you’re options will stay with vote by mail, early voting in Norwalk (.pdf) or waiting until Election Day.

Though that doesn’t explain why they couldn’t put the early voting location in a place that’s easier to reach (like, say, the middle of the city), but at least our votes will be counted.

From the comments of my last post, my friend Dan makes an especially important point that I haven’t mentioned here :

Don’t forget also that while Obama’s lead is pretty strong, the numbers are a little stronger than they should be for Prop. 8, the anti-gay marriage amendment. Especially considering that many people will likely leave the long lines on election day in California (where Obama will almost definitely win) it’s important that we all counteract the lies of right wing nut jobs in the time we have left. The best way to do that is to donate money to No on 8. With that money, they can afford to buy more airtime for their commercials which counteract the misinformation of the pro-8 bigots.

The election is a week away. Tensions are running high. I’m not going to be able to relax until next Tuesday night, but at this point, I really don’t see much reason to worry. Obama is doing way too well for McCain to turn it around and pull off a surprise win. For an illustration of just how hard it is for McCain, here’s a map with my prediction of the most plausible best case scenario for McCain which still ends with an Obama win :

That’s a pretty slim margin and it makes some pretty big assumptions that Obama loses battleground states like Ohio, Florida, Colorado, New Hampshire, Nevada, Indiana, Missouri, and North Carolina. But in a scenario in which you give every one of those states to McCain, as long as Obama can hold on to Pennsylvania and Virginia (which, from what I’ve been reading, are the places McCain is fighting the hardest this week), then he’ll win the presidency. So how are the polls looking in those states?

Those are the trendlines that McCain has to reverse in the next eight days. Even if something dramatic happens, I don’t think there’s enough time for the kind of massive momentum shift that McCain needs. Consider the type of polling reversal McCain is praying for to this zoomed-in view of his only massive polling surge of the election, when he selected Sarah Palin :



Yet even in the McCain campaign’s finest hour, the polling shift was relatively minor (~5%), the candidates were closer together than they are now, and McCain was already riding some pre-RNC, rally-the-base momentum. The stars aren’t going to align like that again for McCain in the next few days. And even if McCain saw a stroke of good luck, look at those PA and VA charts again. The Palin bounce barely registered.

Also, in the interests of making the national numbers above an apples-to-apples sort of comparison, here’s the same chart from mid-Sept. to now :

Of course, all the numbers in the world won’t be enough to calm me down either, so if you’re looking for something to do between now and election day, consider volunteering for the campaign and helping GOTV.

The McCain campaign’s $150,000 Sarah Palin wardrobe budget would pay for 375 of John Edwards’ haircuts. So if spending $400 on a haircut makes somebody effete, insincere, and “out of touch”, what should we make of this?