Election day resources for the savvy election watcher

The election is tomorrow, and today the final polls came rolling in. For those who are curious the night before the election, these two are generally the most accurate sources for determining where elections stand:

(1) Real Clear Politics

(2) FiveThirtyEight

To see where public opinion stands on the eve of the election on a range of issues impacting voting preferences, this is the best source:

(1) Gallup

Finally, to see how states have trended in prior elections and leading up into this one, this is a very useful reference. Select the year(s) you want to see from the dropdown box:

(1) 270 to Win's Election Timeline

For some late-night bedside reading about the entire election season, see the first source below. Additionally, for those who have been asking about the Electoral College, the second link contains all of the electors' names as well as additional links for further information.

(1) Election 2016 Wikipedia

(2) 2016 Electors Wikipedia

Finally, I know that many people are very skeptical of public opinion polls. I would caution you against that though because the major polls have historically been quite accurate, and averaging them together is generally even better. (This is why all candidates - including the two current ones - talk about polling frequently and even administer their own polls.)

To clear up one thing, the actual "numbers" that polls report grab headlines and are what most people quote (e.g., "candidate A" is polling at 47%), but they are not, however, the actual projection of the poll. The projection is a margin of error, and all scientific polls report margins of error. So if polls peg "candidate A's" support at 47% but the poll has a 4-point margin of error, then the poll was accurate as long as "candidate A" earned between 43% and 51% of the vote.

Here are two sources to that effect. As can be seen, public opinion polls have historically been quite accurate, and rarely are results outside their margins of error (first link). To get an even starker idea, Gallup's presidential polling is generally among the more inaccurate of the major ones, yet results are almost always within even Gallup's margin of error (second link).

(1) Investor's.com

(2) Gallup's Election Poll Accuracy

I hope that these references were a helpful primer in the eleventh hour. If you're an informed citizen, then don't forget to vote tomorrow!

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