Opinions of a Wolf

“Analyzing Participation of Voters in US Presidential Elections” Dr. Charles Stewart III, MIT

• Recommends the book Southern Politics in State and Nation
• Have elections gotten better since 2000?
• Ideological claims amount to religious beliefs, not scientific beliefs.
• Based on 2000 data between 1.5 and 2 million votes were lost to voting machines, 2 million to registration difficulties, and 1 million to voters getting frustrated on site and walking away.
• All voting data for each state is online except for Massachusetts.
• EAC–Election Assistance Commission
• There has been real improvements in voting machines.
• Recommends DataFerret (although, the website appears to be busted?)
• We’re doing better at registering and counting votes, but do we feel better?  Although we’ve improved, Americans don’t believe it.
• Recommends The Democracy Index: Why Our Election System Is Failing and How to Fix It

“Body Language” Dr. Joseph Tecce, Boston College

• Extremes in body language and/or eye movement are red flags.
• Negative feeling states always increase blink rate.
• Positive feeling states always decrease blink rate.
• Indicators of stress include: eye blinks, gaze aversion.
• During the 2008 presidential debates, Obama blinked 62 times, and McCain blinked 104 times (per minute?)
• Although we have no video of as high stress of a situation as a presidential debate of Romney, the current video of him on a panel shows a 16 blink rate.
• Tecce predicts that Romeny and Obama are going to have a very close election.
• Blink rate of televised presidential candidates during their debates predict 100% who will win, except in 2000.
• Thus, we know that blink rate predicts the popular vote.
• Social cue hypothesis: body language is not just a social cue, it’s an indicator.
• You cant tell when someone is lying from one indicator, but it’s a good sign to be on alert.

“Forecasting Elections” Munish Puri, Recorded Future

• Perspective is affected by the four p’s: perch, point of view, period, permanence.
• When talking or writing about forecasting, it’s important to consider the point of view of the predictor.
• political risk–how politics impact business
• Make and falsify predictions by using: probability, impact, and time range.
• Recommended tools to monitor and watch elections: Electionista, WaPo Modifiable Model, GooglePortal, Yahoo Clues
• Insight big data can show us: signal, shift, blindspot, outlier, and flashpoints
• Recommends Evernote and MindManager