Recounting ballots

Check out this article that provides examples of contested Senate ballots in Minnesota. I found it to be depressing on 3 levels...

1. Voters needed to fill out an oval by the name of the candidate they wanted to vote for. The ballots provide evidence that this process proved to be a steep "brain" teaser for some. Apparently Minnesota is Canada's Florida.

2. Each candidate pulled ballots that they feel show the "intent" to vote for them. Each candidate shows a remarkably broad definition of intent.

3. You can vote to say which way the ballot should be counted (for fun only... I hope). I tried to be 100% objective. Either I need to go back to intent school, or many of the other online voters are letting where they want the vote to go color their selection.

Election map

This is one cool map. I am talking about the interface -- will leave the assessment of what it resulted in to you.

I highly recommend the "bubble" view and the comparisons to past results. Great way to understand the data and trends.

VP debate online tool kit

Some options to blend in some online action during the debates. Given the track records of both participants, might be a lot to chatter about during the VP debate... the Gaffer vs. the Rambler.

Palin for President

The other Palin. Not a political statement, just a nice use of Python clips.

Election map

Sure feels like we will have yet another late night to see how the Presidential election goes this year. This online election map looks promising,. You can drill down to the state, and then county level. Might be worth bookmarking is you are inclined to watch results flow in.

Surprised to see Chicago had not already voted... twice :)

Patchwork nation

I am really impressed on how this site conveys a ton on information visually.

Also seems like a fairly nonpartisan analysis of voting blocks... our patchwork nation. A tad more nuanced than the standard red state / blue states thing.

Tracking delegates

Plenty of nifty delegate counters/trackers out there. There is USA Today's circle dominated version, the NY Times table approach, or CNN's slider-o-rama.

Mildly disturbing that each one has different current counts - one would have thought we would have nailed this voting thing down by now. Well, except in Florida, not sure they will ever get it figured out.

Social media in politics

The web 2.o angle on Hillary vs. Barack

Super Tuesday tech

Nice summary of where the various candidates are at regarding technology.

Watchus Caucus

Nope, not a long forgotten Roman Emperor, just something for the political junkies out there... here are some resources to see Iowa Caucus results as they happen.

I tell tell just by lookng at 'em

Test your ability to prejudge and paint with a broad brush.

Neat little site where you guess political affiliation by looking at someone's photo.