Monday, November 03, 2008

Will fivethirdyeight.com use this poll?

I had my Graduate Class in Communication Complexity VOTE FOR PREZ in a secret ballot. The rules were: They could vote for anyone on the ballot in Maryland, (I supplied a ballot with all of the candidates in Maryland) OR write someone in OR write NONE OF THE ABOVE. Here are the candidates and how many votes they got.
  1. Obama-Biden, Democrat party: 11 votes
  2. McCain-Palin, Republican: 1 vote
  3. McKinney-Clemente, Green: 1 vote
  4. Barr-Root, Libertarian: 0 vote
  5. Nader-Gonzalez, Independent: 1 vote
  6. Baldwin-Castle, Constitution: 0 votes
  7. None of the Above: 1 vote.
Speculation:
  1. Usually the Republican does better than this, and McCain is one of those Republicans who (perhaps used to) appeal to moderates and even democrats. So why only one vote? (1) ``I used to like McCain before he turned rightward this campaign'', (2) My class actually likes Obama. In the past there were people who couldn't stand Kerry or Gore, so while they didn't like Bush, they voted for him anyway.
  2. Usually I get one or two Libertarian voters. Why note this year? Speculation: (1) They think of Barr are really being a republican, (2) They think Obama really does transcent party and ideology. (3) The libertarians are tired of having their votes not count. (4) They got confused by the butterfly ballot that I used.
  3. Our student body is somewhat liberal. Or maybe its just that the students at Univ of MD interested in applying Ramsey Theory to Communiation Complexity are somewhat liberal.
  4. One of my colleagues was amazed that McCain got one vote.
  5. Of the 15 people in my class, around 10 are from other countries.
  6. This could be bad news for Mccain. There is that classic saying: as goes Graduate Communication Complexity, so goes the nation.
  7. Is it foolish to look at a small poll from an obviously biased source? Perhaps yes, but compare that to the networks yammering on enlessly about small shifts here and there.
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5 comments:

  1. Anonymous10:53 AM, November 03, 2008

    Maybe the validity of the secrecy of the balloting was suspect so many people voted the way they felt you wanted them to vote. These are people whose handwriting, and writing implement of choice you have seen numerous times already, as well as what ever residual knowledge you have about who is associated with which ballot by whatever system you used to distribute and collect them.

    ReplyDelete
  2. GASARCH12:12 PM, November 03, 2008

    I gave them a ballot where they had to put an X next
    to one of the candidates.
    No handwriting giveaways.
    Writing implements? About half of the class hands their homework in typed in latex.
    Also I can't imagine they would think I would hold
    how they voted against them.
    (And in fact, I would not,
    even if I knew who voted
    which way.)

    ReplyDelete
  3. Anonymous1:43 PM, November 03, 2008

    make another referendum to check who is actually going to vote

    ReplyDelete
  4. Anonymous4:04 PM, November 03, 2008

    I am curious to see how Rathinccers vote on California's Proposition 8...

    In case it wasn't obvious: Rathinccers = RamseyTheoryInCommunicationComplexity-ers

    ReplyDelete
  5. Unknown5:19 PM, November 03, 2008

    I'd normally be one of those libertarians, but I don't really care for Barr. (See article).

    I like Obama for his open government initiatives.

    Additionally, I don't think anyone was worrying about Gasarch finding out the way they voted, let alone what he would think of it. Its enough that he UNDERSTANDS who we voted for, he doesn't have to be HAPPY about it. :)

    ReplyDelete

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