Online pollmaster reveals political face

The creator of a popular Web site that tracks electoral votes by state has finally revealed himself. For two months, readers have been checking in with Current Electoral Vote Predictor 2004 for the latest standings in the U.S. presidential election--some obsessively. The site is now in the top 1,000 Web sites worldwide and sees more than half a million visits per day. But all the while, no one knew who was behind it.

That is, until today. Andrew Tanenbaum, an American computer science professor who lives in Amsterdam, released a statement explaining his background, his political views and the reason he started the Web site in the first place--that is, to get Americans abroad registered to vote.

Tanenbaum updates the site daily with the latest polls. What makes his site different from many others is that he compiles individual polls for each state, giving a prediction for the number of electoral votes each candidate will receive. The site features a map of the United States, with each state shaded based on its current pick for president and how strong candidate support is.

While Tanenbaum's site has gained a huge audience, his is not the only poll predictor out there. Another popular site is the Electoral College Meta-Analysis, run by Princeton University Professor Sam Wang. This site also counts electoral votes by state and features a daily Web log. Wang is thorough in his research, and number nerds will not be disappointed by the detailed descriptions of his calculations.

A third site, based on a similar concept, is called Election Projection. The site is run by Scott Elliott, aka the Blogging Caesar. While all three pollmasters claim that their politics don't color their respective sites, their current results all show their personal picks for president ahead in the polls. To be fair, both left-leaning Tanenbaum and Wang have previously shown Bush ahead in the polls; likewise, conservative Elliott has shown Kerry ahead in the past.

While none of these guys has the crystal ball that would tell us who will win on Tuesday, all three are clearly making an attempt at finding an intelligent way of tracking the polls. I'm sure that after the election is over and the numbers have been crunched, they'll all have a lot to say about the process. Their hard work on these projects could very well change the way Gallup and other mainstream pollsters make their own predictions.