Polling died last night. It's been terminally ill for a while now. The predictions for the UK general election in 2015 were abysmal. Brexit polls were unreliable. And polls put the Scottish independence referendum result in 2014 as a close call when it was a resounding "No". After its performance in last night's US presidential election, we have to reach for the life support switch. Here are … [Read more...]
Visualizing election results
The New York Times published an article today on how it has mapped election results over the years. It illustrates the challenges of trying to present complex information succinctly to a lay, and possibly hostile, audience. As they note, simply shading the states of the US based on the party that it voted for makes the country look decidedly Republican. A timely reminder, if we needed it, of the … [Read more...]