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posted by on Saturday November 19 2016, @01:14PM   Printer-friendly
from the simon-says-campaign-in-pennsylvania dept.

Submitted via IRC for chromas

The Clinton presidential campaign used a complex computer algorithm called Ada to assist in many of the most important decisions during the race.

According to aides, a raft of polling numbers, public and private, were fed into the algorithm, as well as ground-level voter data meticulously collected by the campaign. Once early voting began, those numbers were factored in, too.

What Ada did, based on all that data, aides said, was run 400,000 simulations a day of what the race against Trump might look like. A report that was spit out would give campaign manager Robby Mook and others a detailed picture of which battleground states were most likely to tip the race in one direction or another — and guide decisions about where to spend time and deploy resources.

Of course, the results are only as good as the data. Since the outcome of the election was different than most poll predictions, it seems like Ada may have had a Garbage In, Garbage Out problem.


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 19 2016, @05:04PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 19 2016, @05:04PM (#429465)

    There are two good points in there. Rather than do a lot of state polls, in most places they did a couple and used national polls to fill in the gaps. Well, if the national polls show Hillary winning, then the states will skew towards Hillary as well.

    In addition, there are gaps between the populace and those that take the polls. I've never taken a poll, not even once, as I don't have the 30 minutes to take out of my day, especially because they insist on calling at the worst possible times. However, the MIL was doing at least one poll a week, as she is home all day and can answer the phone during the day.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 19 2016, @07:24PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 19 2016, @07:24PM (#429558)

    I always lie through my teeth when taking a poll. I also tell them upfront they only have ten minutes of my time, and hold them exactly to that limit.