News from the Votemaster

Please Take This Short Poll

This is a Website about polls, so here is a poll for you. After selecting the answer for each question, click on the corresponding "Vote" button. This records your vote and shows you the current score. You need to click on 11 "Vote" buttons in all. It shouldn't take more than a couple of minutes. Tomorrow, you can come back and view the final results. Thanks.

U.S. Citizens only: Who will/did you vote for?

Barack Obama Mitt Romney Jill Stein Gary Johnson Other

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Noncitizens only: Who would you like to win?

Barack Obama Mitt Romney Jill Stein Gary Johnson Other

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Everyone: Who do you expect to win?

Barack Obama Mitt Romney Jill Stein Gary Johnson Other

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How many seats will the Democrats have in the Senate?

< 47 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 > 54

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How many seats will the Democrats have in the House?

< 200 200-205 206-210 211-217 218-225 226-230 > 230

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Now a few questions about the readership of this site. Again click on "Vote" separately for each question.

This election aside, which party do you identify with?

Democratic Republican Green Libertarian None (independent) Other

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Which ideology best describes you?

Liberal Moderate Conservative Other

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Which issue is most important to you?
	Jobs
	Economy
	Federal debt
	Taxes
	Health care
	Abortion
	Foreign policy
	Immigration
	Dumping Obama
	Blocking the GOP
	Other

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Where do you live?
	Northeast
	South (incl. TX)
	Midwest
	Mountain West
	West Coast
	Canada
	Latin America
	Europe
	Asia
	Oz/NZ
	Other

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What is your gender?

Male Female

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What is your age?

< 18 18-29 30-39 40-49 50-59 60-69 >= 70

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What is your highest degree?

No HS degree High school 2-yr college Bachelors Masters Ph.D./M.D./J.D./etc.

Thank you!

Obama Continues to Surge in the National Polls

Eight national polls were published yesterday. In five of them, Obama is leading. In the other three he is tied. However, he was trailing in two of the tied polls from the same pollsters earlier, so he is gaining. In politics, a week is a long time, but a day isn't so long and Romney has only a day to stop Obama's momentum. Here are the data.

Pollster	Obama	Romney	Leading
Pew	50%	47%	Obama +3%
YouGov	49%	47%	Obama +2%
Marist	48%	47%	Obama +1%
Ipsos	48%	47%	Obama +1%
WaPo/ABC	49%	48%	Obama +1%
Tarrance+Lake	48%	48%	Tie
Opinion Research	49%	49%	Tie
Rasmussen	49%	49%	Tie

Dutch Newspaper Reports Romney Avoided $100 Million in Taxes

This morning, investigative reporters at a quality Dutch newspaper, De Volkskrant, published a story that Mitt Romney avoided $100 million in dividend taxes using a complex route that ran through The Netherlands. The mechanism used an arcane clause in the tax treaties that determine which country can tax which type of income when a construction, in this case a private equity fund, runs through multiple countries. Some of the data came from legal documents filed with the Dutch Chamber of Commerce. The reporters repeatedly asked Romney to comment on the story but he refused. Here is a translation of the article.

Analysis of Key Races in All 50 States

The Washington Post has a great analysis of the top races in all states. The state of the presidential race is well known at this point. Obama is slightly ahead in New Hampshire, Iowa, and Nevada. Romney leads in North Carolina. The only states where nobody is really ahead are Florida, Virginia, and Colorado. The top Senate races are also well known, as shown here. What the WaPo analysis gives is a look at close House races. Embattled incumbents include Rep. Allen West (R-FL), Rep. John Barrow (D-GA), Rep. Steve King (R-IA), Rep. John Tierney (D-MA), Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN), Rep. Frank Guinta (R-NH), Rep. Charlie Bass (R-NH), and quite a few others.

Florida Election in the Courts Already

Florida elections and lawsuits seem to be an enduring couple. Vast numbers of early voters in Florida yesterday overwhelmed the polling stations. Some voters waited in line for 7 hours. Others couldn't vote at all. Some voters in Miami-Dade County were told to cast absentee ballots but when they tried to get them, the office issuing them closed down. In short, it was chaos in South Florida yesterday.

The Democratic Party sued the state in an effort to make adequate voting facilities available. Gov. Rick Scott (R-FL) just brushed off the problems and said everything was running smoothly. Last year the Republican-controlled legislature reduced early voting days from 14 to 8 in a more-or-less naked attempt to discourage voting in South Florida, which is strongly Democratic. Miami-Dade, Broward, and Palm Beach counties are where 32% of Florida's Democrats live. The judge doesn't have a lot of time to study the case and render a decision since tomorrow is election day.

Voting Equipment Still Not Verifiable

Another election problem is that some electronic voting machines do not have a paper trail. They are still in use and could be pre-programmed to silently flip some votes or report an incorrect total and no one would have any way of auditing them. The Verified Voting Foundation has been fighting for voting systems with an audit trail for years, with mixed success. For the most part, each of the over 3,000 counties in the U.S. can buy whatever voting equipment it wants to. Few of the counties have any expertise in voting system security and just believe whatever their supplier tells them. The Verified Voting Foundation Website has a great deal of information about voting equipment and procedures, including a map showing the dominant equipment in each state. Florida and Virginia, for example, have a mixture of paper ballots and unverifiable electronic voting machines. Colorado has a mix of paper ballots and electronic voting machines, some with a paper trail and some without. Nevada and Utah are the only states with electronic voting machines all of which have paper trails. The paper trails are essential for an honest election since in the event of a close election, the paper ballots can be manually counted.

Could Unreadable Signatures Be the Hanging Chads of 2012?

Voting machines aren't the only potential source of controversy in this election. Absentee ballots that are mailed in could lead to battles this time. Over 20% of the voters in Ohio and Florida mailed in absentee ballots in 2010 and this year the number is expected to be greater. The ballots are sent back in official envelopes that the voter must sign. If the signature does not match the one on file--in the opinion of whoever is doing the checking--the ballot will be rejected. Nationwide, over 2 million absentee ballots were rejected for bad signatures in 2008. In a close election, fights over signatures could erupt, with handwriting experts replacing lawyers as the key professionals in the fights.

Positive Campaign Ads Have Essentially Vanished

In earlier elections, candidates spent a lot of money explaining to the voters why they were qualified to be President and what they would do if elected. For example, 56% of John Kerry's Ads in 2004 were positive and 42% contrasted him with Bush. This year, 59% of Obama's ads were negative and 27% contrasted him with Romney. Only 14% were positive ads, talking about why he should be reelected. Romney's ads were a tad less negative, but not much. Few people expect the situation to improve in future elections.

Russia Lambasts the U.S. for Undemocratic Elections

With individual donors giving millions of dollars to campaigns, state legislatures doing their best to minimize the number of people who vote, voters being made to wait 7 hours to vote, international observers being sent packing in Texas and Iowa, and voting machines that can't be checked, the Russian Foreign Ministry has said the U.S. election system is the worst in the world. That is certainly not true, but a case could be made that it is the worst among mature democracies, none of which experience the kinds of problems the U.S. has, from outsized influence of a few wealthy individuals to governmental attempts to suppress the vote to chaos at the polling stations. While the U.S. system is far better than the Russian one, that is setting the bar pretty low.

Neither Presidential Candidate Seems to Have Senatorial Coattails

There are hard fought Senate races in many states, including Massachusetts, Virginia, Wisconsin, Indiana, Missouri, North Dakota, Montana, Nevada, and Arizona, but the presidential race doesn't seem to be having much impact on them. The Senate races have gotten so much publicity on their own and the candidates are so much larger than life that most voters are going to be making conscious choices in the Senate races, and not just voting a straight party line. In Massachusetts, Obama will win in a landslide, but the Senate race between Sen. Scott Brown (R-MA) and Elizabeth Warren is close. Romney will sweep Indiana, Missouri, North Dakota, Montana, and Arizona, but that is cold comfort to the Republican Senate candidates in those states who are in very competitive races. So the bottom line is that we are likely to see quite a few split tickets this year.

New Jersey to Allow Ballots to be Sent in By Email

Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno (R-NJ), who is the state's top elections official, has decreed that voters who can't vote due to Hurricane Sandy's aftermath may send absentee ballots in by email. Even under the best of circumstances, with careful planning, the possibility of fraud with email ballots is gigantic and in an emergency situation with no security controls in place, it is even worse. Fortunately, there are no competitive races in the state for any federal office, but there could be for state offices.

Today's Presidential Polls

State	Obama	Romney		Start	End	Pollster
Arizona	46%	53%		Nov 02	Nov 03	PPP
Colorado	48%	48%		Nov 02	Nov 04	IPSOS
Florida	46%	46%		Nov 02	Nov 04	IPSOS
Florida	47%	49%		Nov 01	Nov 03	Zogby
Florida	48%	50%		Oct 29	Oct 29	Pulse Opinion Research
Iowa	50%	48%		Nov 03	Nov 04	PPP
Massachusetts	57%	37%		Oct 31	Nov 03	U. of Mass.
Massachusetts	58%	40%		Oct 26	Nov 01	Western New England U.
Minnesota	52%	41%		Nov 01	Nov 03	SurveyUSA
Missouri	45%	53%		Nov 02	Nov 03	PPP
Montana	43%	53%		Oct 29	Oct 29	Rasmussen
Montana	43%	53%		Oct 29	Oct 31	Mason Dixon
Montana	45%	52%		Nov 02	Nov 03	PPP
North Carolina	49%	49%		Nov 03	Nov 04	PPP
New Hampshire	50%	48%		Nov 03	Nov 04	PPP
Ohio	48%	44%		Nov 02	Nov 04	IPSOS
Ohio	48%	46%		Oct 29	Oct 29	Pulse Opinion Research
Ohio	50%	42%		Nov 01	Nov 03	Zogby
Ohio	52%	47%		Nov 03	Nov 04	PPP
Pennsylvania	49%	46%		Nov 01	Nov 03	Muhlenberg Coll.
Pennsylvania	49%	46%		Oct 30	Oct 30	Pulse Opinion Research
Virginia	47%	46%		Nov 02	Nov 04	IPSOS
Virginia	49%	48%		Oct 30	Oct 30	Pulse Opinion Research
Virginia	50%	44%		Nov 01	Nov 03	Zogby
Virginia	51%	47%		Nov 03	Nov 04	PPP
Wisconsin	49%	48%		Oct 30	Oct 30	Pulse Opinion Research

Today's Senate Polls

State	Democrat	D %	Republican	R %	I	I %	Start	End	Pollster
Arizona	Richard Carmona	46%	Jeff Flake	51%			Nov 02	Nov 03	PPP
Florida	Bill Nelson*	50%	Connie McGillicuddy	46%			Oct 29	Oct 29	Pulse Opinion Research
Florida	Bill Nelson*	52%	Connie McGillicuddy	38%			Nov 01	Nov 03	Zogby
Florida	Bill Nelson*	54%	Connie McGillicuddy	39%			Nov 02	Nov 04	IPSOS
Massachusetts	Elizabeth Warren	48%	Scott Brown*	49%			Oct 31	Nov 03	U. of Mass.
Minnesota	Amy Klobuchar*	60%	Kurt Bills	30%			Nov 01	Nov 03	SurveyUSA
Missouri	Claire McCaskill*	48%	Todd Akin	44%			Nov 02	Nov 03	PPP
Montana	Jon Tester*	45%	Denny Rehberg	49%			Oct 29	Oct 31	Mason Dixon
Montana	Jon Tester*	48%	Denny Rehberg	46%			Nov 02	Nov 03	PPP
Ohio	Sherrod Brown*	43%	Josh Mandel	36%			Nov 01	Nov 03	Zogby
Ohio	Sherrod Brown*	50%	Josh Mandel	42%			Nov 02	Nov 04	IPSOS
Ohio	Sherrod Brown*	50%	Josh Mandel	43%			Oct 29	Oct 29	Pulse Opinion Research
Ohio	Sherrod Brown*	54%	Josh Mandel	44%			Nov 03	Nov 04	PPP
Pennsylvania	Bob Casey*	46%	Tom Smith	45%			Oct 30	Oct 30	Pulse Opinion Research
Pennsylvania	Bob Casey*	48%	Tom Smith	42%			Nov 01	Nov 03	Muhlenberg Coll.
Virginia	Tim Kaine	48%	George Allen	46%			Nov 02	Nov 04	IPSOS
Virginia	Tim Kaine	48%	George Allen	48%			Oct 30	Oct 30	Pulse Opinion Research
Virginia	Tim Kaine	49%	George Allen	41%			Nov 01	Nov 03	Zogby
Virginia	Tim Kaine	52%	George Allen	46%			Nov 03	Nov 04	PPP
Wisconsin	Tammy Baldwin	47%	Tommy Thompson	48%			Oct 30	Oct 30	Pulse Opinion Research

* Denotes incumbent

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---The Votemaster