Eurovision Selection

Some months ago the UK announced that they were changing their Eurovision selection process. Instead of letting the audience pick the act and song for their entrant, this year the audience will only pick the act and Andrew Lloyd Weber will write a song for the winning contestant. This left me wondering which national selection method had the best results at Eurovision. I looked at just how countries chose their final act and song in 2008. I didn't account for how they selected acts to participate or if they used multiple rounds in their selection, I only looked at the final selection.

I identified seven different selection methods, however all seven were characterized by two things, whether or not they allowed the audience to vote and/or used an internal jury. I then found the average number points countries got in the semi-final and final categorized by selection method.

	Semi-Final Points	Final Points
Average points regardless of selection method	66	100
Used both audience vote and internal jury	82	139
Internal jury involved	70	131
Audience vote involved	71	100
Internal jury only	41	98
Audience vote only	58	53

Seems the UK is right in mixing up their selection process as their previous method of just having the audience vote has a poor record. What I find interesting is that, alone, neither audience voting nor internal jury have good results, but when they're somehow used together, results improve. There seems to be a kind of synergy between them. One thing to note is that all gimmick acts were chosen by audience voting only, so possibly juries keep obviously bad acts from getting through. On the other hand, having audience participation may lessen the chances of getting an unpopular act as the jury's selection has a lot more to do with the kind of people in the jury than the popularity of the acts. Juries may tend to pick the best quality act, but Eurovision is all about popularity.

Specifically, the most successful method of selection in 2008 was when the act was picked by an internal jury, but the final song was chosen by the audience. This method was used by Armenia, Israel, and Ukraine. This method netted an average Semi-Final score of 132 and Final score of 184. Why this method was so successful (even though none of those countries won), I can't say.

The least successful method was actually the exact opposite of the most successful method, having the act picked by the audience and the song picked later by an internal jury. Of course, only one country used this method, Montenegro. It got 23 points in the Semi-Final and did not participate in the Final. Unfortunately for the UK, this is similar to the method it plans to use this year.

Just some general information, of the 43 countries that participated last year, 17 used audience voting only in choosing their entry, 8 used only an internal jury, and 18 used a mix of both. Belgium probably has the oddest method in that on even-numbered years (2008, 2006, etc) it uses only audience voting, but on odd-numbered years (2009, 2007, etc) it uses only an internal jury. This is partially because they alternate between letting Flanders and Walloon pick their entry.

Regional Contention in Elections

I remember hearing from some people with more extreme political views that the election of Obama (or sometimes McCain) would lead to riot, civil strife, and possibly all out war between Red and Blue states. This seems partially due to the proliferation of the misconception since 2000 that Red states are totally Red, Blue states are totally Blue, and there's no middle ground between. If this view is accepted, then it's only a matter of time before one of these states gets fed up and decides to leave the Union.

Of course, just looking at election results reveals that elections in individual states tend to be close, it's just a matter of certain regions happen to have more voters of one party than the other, not that the entire region votes monolithically for one party. This observation, plus the fact that there really isn't a decisive issue being handled seems to negate the idea that the US is headed towards destruction. The problems facing the US right now are important, but they are not decisive problems like slavery and civil rights were.

That all said, there were times in the past where states did vote overwhelming in favor of one party, yet the US survived those periods, more often than not with no calls for secession or civil conflict.

Thinking about all this, I decided to make a formula to measure the level of regional division during an election to see how 2008 compared to past elections. The formula is based on the standard deviation of the votes for the two main candidates in each state. A high standard deviation indicates that support for a candidate was highly regional and a low standard deviation indicates that a candidate had level support throughout the country. I chose only to measure the two main candidates for simplicity and the fact that the impact of a third party candidate would still affect the results of the other candidates, particularly if it was a regional candidate.

Here are all election years after popular voting was introduced sorted by what I call their "regional contention score". A high score means that support for the candidates was highly regional and a low score means that the candidates had level support throughout the country.

Election	RC Score	Notes
1824	1.13	First election with popular voting
1860	0.78	The election of Lincoln, two different regions each with its own candidates
1856	0.57	Collapse of the Whigs, appearance of Republicans in the North
1828	0.57
1832	0.50
1836	0.44	Whigs run three candidates hoping to force a draw in the Electoral College
1924	0.44	Democratic vote split between Davis in the South and LaFollette in the North
1892	0.44	Populists win votes in the West
1904	0.41
1912	0.37	TR runs as a Progressive
1896	0.37
1920	0.35
1908	0.32
1916	0.30
1900	0.29	Average regional contention score
1932	0.29
1940	0.28
1948	0.27	Dixiecrats win votes in the South
1936	0.26
1964	0.25	Johnson landslide, but didn't appear on the Alabama ballot
1944	0.25
1968	0.25	Wallace wins votes in the South
1928	0.25
1868	0.23	Reconstruction, median regional contention score
1888	0.23
2008	0.22	Most Recent Election
2000	0.22
2004	0.21
1864	0.21	Only northern states voted
1880	0.20
1980	0.20
1876	0.19
1996	0.19
1992	0.19	Most successful third party campaign with widespread support
1848	0.19
1884	0.18
1972	0.18	Nixon landslide election
1872	0.18
1984	0.18	Reagan landslide election
1952	0.17
1956	0.17
1988	0.16
1976	0.16
1852	0.15
1960	0.13
1844	0.12
1848	0.12

Looking at this, 2008 was not at all unusual and was actually below the average and median scores. Although, it should be noted, it was the highest score in 40 years and the number has been rising fairly steadily since 1988. Of course, this is no indication it will continue to rise, as there are historically few rising or falling trends that last four or more election cycles.

Giving the levels of regionalized voting in the past, it seems that the US can survive much more than some people give it credit for. The only time civil war was started was when the electorate was so divided that there were essentially two elections taking place at once. Other moments of highly regional voting usually indicate a split within a party and not in the nation as a whole. The highest score for an election with only two main candidates was the 1904 election which Theodore Roosevelt won by a huge margin. Part of this could have been that while Theodore Roosevelt raised support in the North, few voters in the South were persuaded to vote for a Republican, thus raising the "regional contention score", but not really indicating an increase in political division.

You need more music

It's been awhile since I did a new music post. There's no real theme to this one, just new music I've found that I don't think too many other people have heard.

Ra Ra Riot - Apparently they've been getting a lot of play on college radio, but here they are in case you haven't heard of them. They fall into the genre of chamber pop because of their use of stringed instruments kind of like the Arcade Fire.

Chad VanGaalen - Before you click, let me warn you that the video is rather strange, however, I think the song is really captivating.

The Hoosiers - A British band that Welsh Dan introduced me to. So I've known about them for awhile, but I don't think I've shared them here. Their music is pretty entertaining.

Black Mountain - Rather outside my usual music, but I enjoy it. Kind of has a classic rock sound, but darker.

Those Dancing Days - This band is so Swedish it hurts.

Cut Copy - Electronica! Kind of a throw back to the early Nineties, but I love the singers voice. Also, the video for Hearts on Fire is kind of cute.

Amanda Palmer - Amanda Palmer from the Dresden Dolls released a solo album and it's fantastic. I saw her in concert recently and it was amazing.

The Builders and the Butchers - Unfortunately, this band doesn't have an actual music video yet, but for concert footage, the audio is pretty good. They were the opening act for Amanda Palmer and they put on a great show.

Cloud Cult - Some of you might remember the Princess Bride Song that they did some years ago. Basically everyone at WDCE just played that one song and ignored the rest of their stuff, but I kind of liked it in all it's quirkiness. Since then they've put out some really fantastic albums that deserve to be listened to.

Euro Adoption, not just for Slovakians

The Local

Slovakia wasn't the only place to start using the Euro on January 1st, the Swedish town of Höganäs has decided to start using the Euro alongside the Swedish Krona. The town is a popular tourist destination, so being able to do business in Euros is a huge boost for them. It is not unusual for shops in tourist centers outside the Eurozone to accept Euros. What makes Höganäs unique is that people will be allowed to conduct all official business, such as paying bills and rent, in Euros and withdraw Euros from local ATMs.

2012 Predictions

Using the same predictive model as for 2008. It only predicts states trends regardless of national swing, so it just gives a rough outline of what to expect. Also, I'm also predicting what the electoral college votes might be as they will be changing as a result of the 2010 census.
-
No Change, Obama gets the same national vote in 2012 as in 2008.
Obama - 52.8% - 301 EV
Republican - 45.7% - 159 EV
Toss-Up - 78 EV

Note: Compared to the 2008 result, considering <5% a toss-up, North and South Dakota move from Republican to toss-up, Montana and Indiana move from toss-up to Democrat. However, due to changes after the census, Republicans would probably pick a handful of electoral votes despite no favorable shift in state trends.
-
Obama does as well as Bush Jr. and Clinton, gains 3%.
Obama - 54.3% - 334 EV
Republican - 44.2% - 144 EV
Toss-Up - 60 EV

-
Obama does as well as Reagan, gains 8.5%
Obama - 57.1% - 376 EV
Republican - 41.5% - 83 EV
Toss-Up - 79 EV

Note: There are two reasons why this map doesn't look like Reagan's 49-state sweep map. First, Reagan won by a larger overall margin. Second, there was less variance among the states, consider in 1980, 50.8% got 489 EV, but in 2008, 52.8% got 365 EV. Basically, the two parties are much more entrenched in a number of states than in the past.
-
Obama does as well as Carter and Bush Sr., loses 12.5%
Obama - 46.6% - 204 EV
Republican - 52.0% - 251 EV
Toss-Up - 83 EV

-
Obama and Republican candidate have an equal chance of winning, Obama loses 9%
Obama - 48.3% - 219 EV
Republican - 50.2% - 219 EV
Toss-Up - 100 EV

Note: In order for Republicans to have an equal chance at winning the electoral college, they have to win the popular by over 1.9%.

Without Roe v. Wade

After a discussion with my mom about conservatives' seeming obsession with abortion, it got me thinking about what would happen if the pro-life supporters got their way and were able to overturn Roe v. Wade. Overturning Roe v. Wade, of course, just allows states to then decide for themselves whether to support or ban abortion. While this might lead to a few states banning abortion, nationally the majority of Americans consider themselves pro-choice. The most recent numbers I could find that gave state-by-state opinions on abortion was a 2005 survey by Survey USA. This is what they found, blue states are plurality pro-choice and red states are plurality pro-life.



If we just considered these numbers, it would seem that the majority of states would maintain abortion rights. However, there is also another consideration, South Dakota. In the survey, South Dakota showed a slight pro-life lean, but since this poll was taken there have been two ballot measures to restrict abortion rights in South Dakota, and both lost by over 10%. So that would seem to mean that even states with pro-life majorities may be reluctant to restrict abortion rights.

My 2008 Election Predictor

I mentioned about a month ago that a long time ago, I had made a model that used state voting trends to predict the outcome of the 2008 election. The model only gave a result at a given swing, the amount of change between the two parties, nationally, so its most predictive feature was simply finding how much of swing between 2004 and 2008 would be required to for the Democrats to win. The answer, according to the model, surprisingly little. Due to trends that saw a lot of swing states leaning more Democratic, a swing as small as 0.7% produced a Democratic victory. The thing to keep in mind though, is that Bush won the last election by a margin of 2.5%, meaning that for a swing between 0.7% and 2.5%, the Democratic candidate would win the electoral college, but could lose the popular vote by as much as 1.8%. This meant that the Democrats had a huge advantage going into the 2008 election, regardless everything else that happened. In the end though, there was a 9.3% swing in Obama's favor.

So how accurate was the model? Looking at the actual results, it turns out that Obama could have won outright with just a 0.7% swing, so that, amazingly, was correct. More surprisingly, a swing of just 0.1% would have produced a tie, something my model did not find. Overall, the model produced an average error of 5%, so taking that into account, this is what my model predicted a 9.3% swing towards the Democrats would have produced.



I was quite surprised myself to see that my model predicted that North Carolina and Virginia would be swing states. My model also did well in predicting the inevitability of Nevada and New Mexico becoming blue states. In fact, to keep both of these states red would have required a 5.6% swing towards McCain.

Of course the most obvious mistake was Indiana. As Indiana trended more Republican than the rest of the country in the last two elections, the model predicted it would continue to do so, and Obama would lose Indiana by over 13%. Instead, Indiana showed the second largest shift towards the Democrats this election. The largest shift, and ultimately my models largest error, was Hawaii. Clinton and Gore had won Hawaii by quite wide margins, but Kerry did really poorly, so the model incorrectly predicted that Hawaii was becoming more Republican when in fact it appears that Hawaiians just didn't like Kerry. The model did have Obama winning Hawaii by a decent 15%, but he actually won by 45%.

Additionally, the model got Missouri and North Carolina wrong, but they were within the 5% margin of error that I used on the map. The model was fairly accurate for both, they were just so close that even small errors created wrong results. Most of the big errors involved states that were so heavily in favor of one particular candidate, that it still produced the correct end result, such as in the example of Hawaii.