Election Day, and Why the Polls Might Be Wrong

There are still certain scenarios where McCain can win this. Not all polls put Obama in the lead. Each pollster adjusts his numbers in order to get what he believes will be the right percentage of Evangelicals, Jews, blacks, Hispanics, Asians, white men, women, elderly, college students, Republicans, Democrats, etc. So the polls vary wildly.

The polls don't really tell us anything in an election that differs so dramatically from other elections. If you can't tell in what percentages each group is going to come out to vote, you don't know how to adjust the numbers, and the poll becomes useless.

I donated yesterday to Obama's campaign. If I didn't need to spend the extra thirty bucks, so be it. I'd rather be safe than sorry.

You know, Mississippi doesn't have early voting. Many of Mississippi's blacks and Mexicans are manual laborers. I used to live next to an apartment that a construction company rented for its laborers. Particularly after the real-estate bubble burst, the bigger companies work the whole state and often only go home to their families on the weekends. Because MS doesn't have early voting, those laborers aren't going to be able to vote.

Mississippi also took party affiliation off this year's ballot in order to protect their Republican incumbents. The governor tried to violate federal laws by moving a close senate race to the very end of the ballot. There was a study during the 2004 election which showed that statistically poor voters don't make to the end of the ballot. By moving the close race to the end of the ballot, the governor was protecting the Republican candidate from statistically Democratic poor voters. Luckily, the MS Supreme Court ruled against the governor and he changed the ballot back. But we still don't have party affiliation on the ballot.

There are tricks a plenty! My advice: Don't stay up all night waiting for the results to come in. If this race is close, Tuesday night could stretch into a long week, especially when the lawsuits start rolling in.