The 2020 election should not be a mess except that what seems to be obvious will be ignored. Angry stupid people could vote en masse.
Known unknowns include voter suppression and other mischief. Shy Trumpists meet the “Bradley Effect”.
Election forecasters do not mean to convey absolute certainty. Just before Election Day, The New York Times’ Upshot forecast gave Trump a 15% chance of winning, and FiveThirtyEight’s model put his chances at 29%, indicating that a Republican win was not out of the question.
But the Princeton Election Consortium, which had predicted the 2012 results with striking accuracy, was more certain of a Clinton win, giving her a 99% chance in the days leading up to the election.
Sam Wang, a neuroscientist who runs the Princeton model, said in an email that in 2016 he had not factored in enough potential “systematic error” — a catchall variable that accounts for imperfections in individual polls. In 2016, he never set that variable higher than 1.1 percentage points, but in 2020 he plans to set it at two points.
“That will increase the uncertainty much more,” he said, “which will set expectations appropriately in case the election is close.”
news.yahoo.com/...
Shy or passive-aggressive: