1. BIG DATA and the ELECTION
How is big data being used in the election? But can big data predict the winner?
million tweets
were generated by the presidential debate
The Democratic and Republic conventions and a campaign to Save Big Bird. Since
each generated an estimated one terabyte of the debate's close, avian accounts @BIGBIRD
data from e-mails, tweets, streaming video and @FiredBigBird have jumped to more
and mobile Internet usage.1,2 than 25,000 followers each on Twitter.4,5
Mid-September sales of
Obama coffee cups outpaced
sales of Romney cups.
The infrastructure alone for each convention was
required to support traffic for more than 58 42
participants
and attendees.
Obama to Win
At Intrade, an online political betting site, gamblers
have predicted the president the past two elections. As
Each project required of September 21st, online bettors predict the likelihood
of Obama winning to 70%; Romney’s odds plunged
Buycostumes.com and spirit Halloween stores claim from 42% to 30% the week of September 24th, 2012.
miles of copper for the number of Mitt Romney and Barack Obama masks sold
over
LAN customers will predict the winner. So far, President Obama has a
38% margin outselling Romney 69% to 31%.
miles of fiber for
over
the infrastructure
Since 1940 Scholastic magazine has had school-
children vote for president. They have picked
correctly 16 out of the past 18 elections.
Folk legend?
The winner of the World Series determines the winner
of the presidential election. If the American League wins
of U.S. households with a computer have a Republican wins the White House, if the National League wins
broadband Internet access, according to a recent a Democrat wins the White House. The myth has an imperfect record,
6
analyst report, compared to just 57% in 2008. correctly predicting 16 elections since 1920 and getting it wrong seven times.
In all 50 states the elections will generate a
staggering amount of internet traffic beginning A University of Colorado political science model,
3
the weekend before election day and through it. based on state and national unemployment
rates and changes per capita income, predicts
that Romney will win the presidency. President
Obama will only win 213 of 270 electoral
college votes needed to win.7
SOURCES:
1 http://news.yahoo.com/1-terabyte-data-sent-daily-during-conventions-160241397.html 2 http://mashable.com/2012/08/28/one-terabyte-republican-convention/ 3 http://insights.chitika.com/2012/election-tracker-analysis/
4 http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-57525741-93/obama-romney-debate-and-big-bird-generate-10-million-tweets/ 5 http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-57525995-1/presidential-debate-spawns-campaign- to-save-big-bird/
6 http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/OTUS/wacky-ways-predict-presidential-election/story?id=17293644#9 7 http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/22/university-of-colorado-pr_n_1822933.html