Category: Technical Politics

I know of two competing assessments of which Republican will win each of Michigan’s 14 CDs.  If you have a guess, or hear of somebody else’s prediction, please post it, and I will update my chart. Winning at the district level will essentially completely determine the allocation of delegates, since the winner of each district…

I constantly try to convince candidates to try to reach voters in unconventional, but effective, ways.  The looks I get are the same as dental hygienists get when they talk about flossing.  Still, we must deliver the same little speech, hoping to find a receptive ear.  Some people floss.  One of the tactics I push…

It probably shouldn’t be a surprise, but I had never looked at the question before.  I looked at all the voters listed by the Secretary of State as applying for an absentee ballot at least 30 days before the August 2008 primary and again 30 days before the 2008 November general election.  I discarded anybody…

(Bumped on account of getting the graphic stuff fixed. – promoted by Eric B.) Continuing my discussion of how people actually use absentee ballots, we have (more or less) final data from the 11/4/08 election.  As you can see, there was a noticeable surge of ballots returned Monday before the election.  Because the data comes…

As I’ve been saying, the rate at which absentee ballots have been returned has been disappointing. I’ve run various analyses, and I think I’ve isolated a major contributing factor:  several hundred thousand people who were not habitual absentee voters were convinced to apply for ballots.  For whatever reason, many of them have failed to follow…

(bump! – promoted by Eric B.) Just about 925,000 ballots have been requested from local Clerks, and about 45% of those have been voted and returned as of noon, Oct. 23.  They’re coming back at a rate of about 4% per day, which makes sense given there are 12 days before the election. About 15,000…

It seems too obvious to need pointing out, but “socialism” calls for ownership by the government of the means of production.  As far as I know, there are no socialists remaining on the left edge of American electoral politics.  To my knowledge, neither Bernie Sanders nor Dennis Kuchinich supports government ownership of insurance companies, steel…

(FYI, here is Bob Alexander’s campaign website – Matt) With Obama surging, McCain AWOL, and the Republican brand so badly damaged it brings “Watergate” to mind, various polls suggest we may see the end of Knollenberg and Walberg.  But what are the prospects for flipping a third Congressional seat?  There aren’t any obvious prospects – the rest…

Before we fight the final battle of Election Day, the two sides are skirmishing over absentee voters.  As of October 10, over 680,000 Michigan voters had applied for ballots, and 80,000 of those ballots had been marked and received back by the local Clerks. Both the Democrats and Republicans have spent large amounts of money…

I frequently find myself trying to convince clients not to obsess about the exact day absentee ballots will be mailed – they seem certain that the ballots all go out on a particular day, and that the instant the voters receive them they set to work marking their choices in order to have it ready…