Follow-Up on Elections

Tomorrow, of course, are the elections here in the USA for President and other elected positions. One month ago I posted "Bungled Election Probability", where I griped about the common test-question gaffe of thinking that the preference ratio among voters will be the same as the probability of winning an election.

An excellent case study on that: Nate Silver's been getting some major attention recently with his very nice "Five Thirty Eight" blog at the New York Times, where he uses sophisticated statistical analyses to track the likely election outcome. There are numerous graphs and charts which nicely highlight the difference between the two measurements (accessed today, Nov-5):