What do we think of the Keith Mothersson’s scenario?

What do we think of the Keith Mothersson’s scenario?

Could Obama really be robbed of victory in this way? [Keith Mothersson of the Campaign for Visible Ballots has been following the US election integrity movement since 2000. In this guest slot he gives his assessment of the current state of play.] Psephologists sometimes look too closely at opinion polls, naively assuming a predictable feed through into election results. The election in the US is a genuine no-holds-barred struggle which could easily go all the way the Supreme Court and/or…

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Which way should you be betting in the closing stages?

Which way should you be betting in the closing stages?

Could McCain-Palin pull something back in the final few days? The panel shows the latest spread prices on the US election from Sporting Index where there has been a further move away from John McCain in the past day. The other markets from IG Index and Spreadfair are a bit more favourable to McCain in their electoral college votes spread. A full range of betting exchange and convention bookie US Election prices is here. A big question now is what’s…

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Why are these Lib Dem ratings all over the place?

Why are these Lib Dem ratings all over the place?

What is it about polling the third party? Just look at the figures in the panel above showing the Lib Dem shares in the latest surveys from the six firms that carry out regular national voting intention opinion polls. All but Populus are from surveys that have been published in the past week. How can you possibly have a situation with such a range of shares from the six different pollsters? This is important because the broad trend in most…

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How can Gord/Mandy get these numbers down?

How can Gord/Mandy get these numbers down?

How can Cameron be stopped if the Tories are in the 40s? In the panel above are the Tory shares from the latest polls by the six firms that carry out monthly voting intention polls in Britain. There seem to be two clusters – ComRes/ICM/YouGov which have the party in the low 40s with Populus/MORI/BPIX recording shares in the mid-40s. These have varied from time to time but in spite of all that’s been happening Labour has found it all…

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Will Gord be able to shrug off a Glenrothes set-back?

Will Gord be able to shrug off a Glenrothes set-back?

Is the narrative so much on his side at the moment? If you look at the Glenrothes by election betting then there’s little doubt how punters are seeing the Fife by election in the seat next door to Brown’s just two weeks today. Although there’s been some tightening of the Labour price the SNP are still odds on favourite. Sarah Brown herself was there yesterday and the Times has a wonderfully amusing account of how stage managed it all was….

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Is early voting adding to the McCain nightmare?

Is early voting adding to the McCain nightmare?

For those obsessed with election numbers there’s a new source which I have put in the links bar on the right – the progress that is being made on early voting. In some states quite a lot of information is being made available including the numbers of registered Democrats and registered Republican party voters who have already turned out. The numbers look very good for Obama – reinforcing his continued solid leads in the polls. With this becoming such a…

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YouGov marginals poll suggests Tory majority of 54

YouGov marginals poll suggests Tory majority of 54

A new YouGov poll of 60 marginal seats where Labour’s majority was between 6% and 14% suggests that there’s been a significant move to the government in the past month. In September the poll projected an overall Tory majority of 110 seats – today’s survey puts that down to 54 seats. The actual voting shares in the poll have the Tory lead at 5% – but remember the seats polls were all solidly Labour last time. The poll was carried…

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