The Tally Room

Two clips today from the Daily Show last week.

With six days to go before the New Zealand general election, there has been little change in the campaigns. The opinion polls retain the essential elements: National leads the polls, with the party running close to 50% support. Labour trailing in the mid-to-high 30s. Greens the clearly...

John McCain's campaign has focused much of its energy on Pennsylvania, despite remaining well short of winning the state in most polls. At first glance, the state appears to be a tough ask, which it is, but McCain's Pennsylvania strategy reflects his overall difficult...

Malcolm Mackerras has written in Thursday's Crikey, critiquing New Zealand's Mixed Member Proportional electoral system (subscription required): Having studied the referendum results of September 1992 and November 1993, and having studied opinion poll data, it is clear to me that a solid majority of New...

With six days to go before polls close in the US, levels of early voting are at their highest levels in a US election. As of Tuesday, the Washington Post summarised early voting figures as: More than twelve million voters have already cast ballots in...

Courtesy of FiveThirtyEight.com, this fascinating report outlining what went on in the process of calling the state of Florida for Al Gore, then reversing it to George W Bush, before returning the state to be "too close to call".

With the final count resulting in the fourth Green, Caroline le Couteur, elected to the final seat in the ACT Legislative Assembly, the ACT's local parliament now includes 7 Labor MLAs, 6 Liberal MLAs and 4 Greens MLAs. On top of that, the ACT...

Note: I'm going to be away from the internet for much of this week, so expect less regular posts. But I'll be back on Saturday to get ready for Tuesday's US election. Jon Stewart examines the various "anti-American" accusations made by conservative politicians in the...

Since Eisenhower's first election in 1952, Virginia has been a solidly Republican state, only going to the Democrats in the landslide election of 1964. As a former Confederate state, the state was solidly Democratic until the 1950s and 1960s, which saw a switch to...

Gordon Brown has had a bad year with by-elections in the UK. Four by-elections were held in two months in the summer of 2008. Labour lost the seat of Crewe and Nantwich to the Conservatives in May. Following the election of Conservative Boris Johnson...