Social application builds possible electoral map

A number of nifty applications have popped up in response to the 2008 elections, like Google's tool to search political speeches and the Obama iPhone application. One more social-networking application is attempting to gain from the current political fever with a very speculative electoral map. For an application with only 321 active monthly users on Facebook, the myPicks U.S. Election 2008 electoral college map looks surprisingly (though certainly not completely) reasonable.

Developed by the Indian company Pramati Technologies, using the Sun Microsystems' social-application tool zembly, myPicks U.S. Election 2008 is a game that lets you "run" for office. The game, which runs on Facebook and MySpace, was developed after a strong response to myPicks Beijing 2008 on Facebook.

The myPicks Election 2008 electoral college map has Obama winning with 286 electoral votes as of October 9.

The point of the game is to accumulate points to move up in the political ranks. A player starts out as a lowly citizen with zero points but quickly earns them by participating in polls, answering trivia questions, and getting "donations" from other users of the application. It takes 2,500 points to put you in the running for school board and 10,000 makes you a candidate for mayor, but the ultimate goal is to become a presidential candidate with 1,000,000 points.

The application asks each player to give their state and to choose a campaign slogan. For the uninspired, it has a handful of generic slogans it offers up like, "Preparing for the future" and "Tomorrow is looking great." It then asks you to answer whether you will be voting for John McCain or Barack Obama, and which of the two you think will win.

The game shows what the electoral map would look like if the presidential election were held that day, based on the answers given by users of the application. Given the application's paltry following, the electoral map clearly cannot represent any sort of reality. On October 9, the application had Obama winning a solid 286 electoral votes and McCain earning 152, with 100 electoral votes left as a toss-up.

The electoral projection map from FiveThirtyEight.com has Obama winning with 346 electoral votes.

(Credit: FiveThirtyEight.com)

As it turns out, though, the map does not look too different from serious predictions being made at sites like FiveThirtyEight.com, which as of October 8 had Obama winning 346.8 electoral votes and McCain winning 191.2. Both maps have critical states like Nevada and Ohio in Obama's camp, while the traditionally Republican-voting Virginia appears as a solid Obama state on both maps.

There are, of course, some wacky outcomes on the myPicks map, such as the tie between Obama and McCain in Louisiana. Perhaps it just goes to show that Obama needs to work the Facebook crowd if he wants to win over more red states.

[UITD]

The Electoral College needs to be transparent. Is anyone aware of that SECOND vote that takes place in December? This is where the REAL voting happens and it has little to do with you and I. We need transparency in the US Government. Trust no one.

[mvymvy]

The real issue is not how well Obama or McCain might do state-by-state, but that we shouldn't have battleground states and spectator states in the first place. Every vote in every state should be politically relevant in a presidential election. And, every vote should be equal. We should have a national popular vote for President in which the White House goes to the candidate who gets the most popular votes in all 50 states.

The National Popular Vote bill would guarantee the Presidency to the candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states (and DC). The bill would take effect only when enacted, in identical form, by states possessing a majority of the electoral vote -- that is, enough electoral votes to elect a President (270 of 538). When the bill comes into effect, all the electoral votes from those states would be awarded to the presidential candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states (and DC).

Because of state-by-state enacted rules for winner-take-all awarding of their electoral votes, recent candidates with limited funds have concentrated their attention on a handful of closely divided "battleground" states. In 2004 two-thirds of the visits and money were focused in just six states; 88% on 9 states, and 99% of the money went to just 16 states. Two-thirds of the states and people have been merely spectators to the presidential election.

Another shortcoming of the current system is that a candidate can win the Presidency without winning the most popular votes nationwide.

The National Popular Vote bill has passed 21 state legislative chambers, including one house in Arkansas, Colorado, Maine, North Carolina, and Washington, and both houses in California, Hawaii, Illinois, New Jersey, Maryland, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Vermont. The bill has been enacted by Hawaii, Illinois, New Jersey, and Maryland. These four states possess 50 electoral votes-- 19% of the 270 necessary to bring the law into effect.

See http://www.NationalPopularVote.com

susan