I've been meaning to write about this since I heard the leak, but I wanted to wait till it was official. After all, seeing what Barack had to say, what the Committee members had to say, and most importantly, what Tim Kaine had to say, was going to give a lot of context to the replacement. Blue Leader was right to expect that I'd have a lot to say, but even though I have an explosive temper and no fear of running my mouth, I do have a little bit of patience. Anyway, since the bourbon's out of the bottle, we may as well drink up. With the appointment of Kaine to the DNC, I am still upset that Dean is without a job, if it's not to be Dean at the DNC, I am cautiously optimistic that Kaine will do a good job.
It's the most...wonderful...time...of the year. That is, the time when the data for the 2008 elections finally comes in.
Generally, new versions of state files come in at a steady trickle, growing to a near-unmanageable flood as the election draws near. But early in the new year after an election, there will be more than usual. Why? The long-awaited arrival of vote history and final new registration figures for the 2008 general.
In my last entry, I discussed matching lists when they did not share a common, persistent and unique identifier. Basic conclusion: challenging! In this week's entry, I'll share a common technique for making the job a little easier--one which has a number of uses beyond list-matching. Read more...
I'd like to follow up on Pluribus' brilliant post on downloading and using census data with an explanation of how these data can be useful to you from a polling perspective. You're starting to see some of this happen with voter file vendors, but, hey, remember, the point of this site is to help smaller groups who can't afford a Catalist subscription do all the crazy fun data things that we do.
Consumer data is one of the most frustrating areas of voter file design, especially if you're interested in transparency or an open-source methodology. Large parts of the voter file process use publically available data, and can be duplicated by any group with relatively low levels of equipment and technical skill (for example, witness my tutorialeffort, which I absolutely promise to get back to after the election). There's no such ability for data appends. After the jump I'll explain why.
As promised earlier, I'm focusing on the way voter files are used during the runup to an election. Last week we covered early voting; this week, it's time to focus on new registrants. Follow me to the magical land of beneath the fold...
As you may have seen, the Supreme Court ruled that the Ohio Secretary of State no longer has to match newly-registered voters against other government databases before allowing them to vote. This is a major win for Democrats (who registered the vast bulk of new voters in Ohio this year, thanks to their record-breaking ground game) and for people who care about voting rights. The first one should be obvious, but let me explain the second.
There's a very interesting story in the Washington Post about how the presidential campaigns are buying ads that display on various Google searches. It's well worth your time. Unfortunately, I don't think it goes far enough in teasing out the implications of this. So I thought I'd lay out some thoughts on the matter.
Originally published at Overdetermined. This diary has been updated.
I think that everyone has managed to become sick of Joe The Plumber, and I'm sorry to keep this going, but this is just fascinating. For those of you reading this who have no idea who Old Joe is, here's a little context. In the third and final Presidential debate, Senator McCain made a reference to someone whom Obama had met on the trail during the previous week. This guy was named Joe, and wanted to buy a plumbing business, but was concerned that an Obama tax plan would put him into a different tax bracket, and as such, he didn't think that he would be able to afford the purchase. During the course of the entire debate, McCain continued making references to this guy, whom he kept calling "Joe The Plumber".
Now, the interesting thing is that using publicly available data, in less than twenty-four hours, we've learned some things about old Joe the Plumber.
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