Talk:United States Senate election in Montana, 2006
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[edit] Financing
Could anyone find a source for how much money Burns and Tester had for their campaigns, and how much was spent? I know that this info had been on NYTimes.com before the election, but I can no longer find it there. I'd think that this info would not just be interesting, but also highly relevant to the race. -- Kicking222 16:58, 8 November 2006 (UTC)
- The FEC has a public disclosure database. It won't show all of the money they had until the end of the month probably, but here's a link to for Burns and Tester. --Bobblehead 01:12, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Vote Corruption?
Has anyone found any information of vote fraud in this race? I know of none explicitly, but I'm a statistician noting that Burns hadn't led a poll since April, yet lost the race by a hair. If it looks like a duck, and it walks like a duck ... (I'm hoping that someone has said it's a duck so I can say so on Wikipedia :) ) Topher0128 20:06, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
- There's an infinite number of reasons why polling is not accurate for elections, the number one reason being that people do not tell pollsters how they will really vote. It's a lot easier to vote for Burns in the privacy of a poll booth than it is to tell a pollster that they'll vote for him over the phone. There's also a propensity for people to see that the person they want to win is ahead by 10 points in the polls and then say "He's ahead by ten points, I don't need to vote". Pollsters also either use "Registered voters" or "Likely voters". Registered voters is perhaps the most inaccurate as anywhere from 20-70 percent of registered voters actually vote. On the other hand, the pollsters rely on people that tell them they are likely voters to actually vote and.. Yet again, people don't actually tell pollsters the correct information. Etc. ETc. Even then, how the pollster asks the question can determine the answer. The order the candidates are included in the question, whether or not the party is mentioned in the question, the tone of voice the pollster uses, etc, etc can influence the answers. Another way certain polling agencies "influence" the answer is by starting out asking people questions about one of the candidates before they ask who they'll vote for. Additionally, most of the final polls are released a week or more before the actual election itself and many of the most intensive ads (both in frequency and negativity) are in the final week. Polls are a snapshot in time (and a blurry snapshot at that). Long story short, polls have a +/- for a reason. A 10 percent lead in a poll with a +/- 5 means the pollster thinks there is a 90-95% chance the actual results is between 5% and 15%. All in all, polls are not accurate, get used to it. --Bobblehead 01:08, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
