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A Match Made in Heaven

By Nathan, Sunday, 12 October 2008

It should come as no surprise that I love good research. I also love politics. Combine the two and, in my opinion, you get a match made in heaven.

That's why fivethirtyeight.com is so pleasing to my soul. It's a new website that uses all the election polls around the country, placing different weights on them based on historical accuracy, sample size, and how recent they are. Basically, it mashes them all together and gives visitors the results. It's actually a little more complicated than that, but that's the gist of it.

The accuracy of 538's results in the primaries were unprecedented. You will definitely want to use this site throughout the election season. Where else can you find the statistical probability of a recount?