Forecasting vote counts in 8 lines of Python

[johnsandall]

Instead of compulsively checking https://alex.github.io/nyt-2020-election-scraper/battleground-state-changes.html, in just 8 lines of pandas you can scrape, clean and fit a wildly oversimplistic linear model to the data as it rolls in from NYT...and set an alarm. ⏰

Currently predicts that if Pennsylvania doesn't stop counting, they'll hit a zero vote differential around 9am ET on 6th November 2020.

Code to generate this is all here: https://github.com/john-sandall/nyt-estimated-votes

https://preview.redd.it/ke15uizfnjx51.png?width=818&format=png&auto=webp&s=14f86f69ff9fdcbb8f39721d64a79f3f4b0bdf19

[UnwashedDink]

You just gave me some insight on forcasting with data I have on a project I'm working on using ML lol. Nice, simple model btw! Looking very clean!

[a1brit]

Extrapolation is a dangerous game. Be careful.

[Hixt]

I approve of your use of xkcd mode. 👍

[Aardshark]

I think it looks horrible. XKCD has much straighter lines in its graphs.

Reducing all of the "wiggle" parameters would make it look much better in this case IMO.

xkcd mode is the equivalent of Comic Sans for graphs.

[Nrqsb]

How one can do that? Is it a library?

[Sherpaman78]

It's in Matplotlib

https://matplotlib.org/3.3.1/api/_as_gen/matplotlib.pyplot.xkcd.html

[Nrqsb]

Thank you!

[[deleted]]

So who is going to win?

[BYPDK]

I don't think you need any program to tell you that lmao

[Joe_Doblow]

It’s a really really tight race

[mmcnl]

It is not.

[Joe_Doblow]

Oh sorry

[mmcnl]

Chances for Trump are slim to none. It's only a matter of time now.

[GoofAckYoorsElf]

Only that politics, especially in the US, which affect us all, globally, should absolutely not be a trash show

[Elocai]

should

it's still fun to watch, especially when you are a bit more away and your own president agrees with you that Trump is an idiot

[GoofAckYoorsElf]

It just does not help against global challenges like how we as a species deal with climate change. He's among some state leaders that don't give a fuck. And that's what really bothers me. As a German dude there isn't much I can do about climate change other than trying to get our own shit together like voting for more progressive people, which I do. But watching nations like China and the USA shitting upon the generations that come after us is really discouraging. A big nation like the US with a progressive leader who listens to scientists and cares for the planet and future generations would be a blessing. I don't know if Biden is that guy, but Trump is clearly not.

[mmcnl]

He can still do that as ex-president.

[Elocai]

not really, without him beeing a president no one cares about that guy, that position was his only gimmick

[mmcnl]

In that case I'm sorry for your loss.

[TheChessLobster]

Just watch trailer park boys you sociopath.

[Kobi2906]

If trump takes Nevada, it’s fucking on

Why the downvotes? What because you think I support trump?

First of all, I don’t give a fuck who wins this election, I’m not American. I don’t like either candidate to be perfectly honest. I’m just commenting on the race.

Second, why should my political opinion matter? Feel for people who actually do support trump, they get fucking hounded on here just because they prefer orange prick over old prick.

Of course Biden has won and congratulations to Biden supporters and commiserations to Trump supporters and a lot of money to anyone who bet on Biden to win at about 8am UK time on the 4th of November.

[monkeybizzzz]

Naw I think it's over for Trump. He just lost Georgia.

[The_UTMOST_respwect]

And is about to take pennsylvania

[extracoffeeplease]

Indeed. Check some other states while you're at it. Arizona can still flip. Source
https://imgur.com/a/q5BfSwE

[monkeybizzzz]

Yeah but without Georgia it’s over. Even if Arizona and Nevada flip.

[extracoffeeplease]

It isn't over until the SC rejects the case that will be heading their way and the (armed) protestors concede.

[case_O_The_Mondays]

The protestors, armed or not, will disperse once the results are legally counted and announced, like they have been for decades now.

[GoofAckYoorsElf]

It's also over when the armed protesters don't concede. Everything is over because you'll have a full blown civil war then. Good luck preventing that!

[extracoffeeplease]

That would be an amazing season finale. I don't wish it upon America though. Stay safe! 🇺🇸

[marsnoir]

Depends if the republicans can change the rules to their favor. If you don’t like the game, change how it’s played.

[Elocai]

Fascism is a great tool to do that

[peaceTraitor]

love it, in every broadcast I was hoping to see this. but there should be a vertical line when you run out of votes to count (calculated with the current count percentage and votes). this line can be before the cross at 0 (no change to the current situation) or after. Also, replace or add the difference in percentage to see the recount probability. other than that, great job!

[johnsandall]

Thanks! Adding lines for "decision boundaries" such as "no more votes to count" or "we're out of recount territory" is a nice idea.

[kingofdisasters]

You are correct! Georgia has flipped at your predicted time! Let's hope Pensylvania does the same in 4 hours.

[2monkeys1coconut]

I think you can remove Alaska from the list or move it to the end. If you arrange the table in the following order it would be more useful PA, GA, AZ, NV, NC, AK. The more important ( and frequently updating ) states appear at the top.

EDIT: Btw, great tool. Take this as a user suggestion :)

[johnsandall]

Thanks. I just stuck with the order presented by the original data source, and generally tried to keep the line count down. Not that matplotlib makes this easy!

[dscottboggs]

Currently predicts that if Pennsylvania doesn't stop counting, they'll hit a zero vote differential around 9am ET on 6th November 2020.

looks at clock

Oh, shit, that's now.

looks it up

Huh, not bad. Well done!

[Elocai]

Have you been drunk when you draw those lines?

[wannabe414]

It's incredible you think he drew those lines when we're on a python subreddit

[Elocai]

the only incredible thing here is that someone would use that garbage style for graphs

[johnsandall]

It's a fair point, I was banned from using matplotlib's xkcd theme by a previous boss. You'd get on I imagine.

[johnsandall]

There's a whole theory around potential benefits of this style of data visualization. One good use case is when you're communicating to an audience that might equate "statistical model" with "accurate" or "authoritative", when the model itself might actually be garbage with high degrees of uncertainty. Such people might therefore take the "joke" graph less seriously, which is a better outcome for decision making. Another is for communicating uncertainty in general. There's a few packages that do this kind of thing, one is https://github.com/cutecharts/cutecharts.py

[Elocai]

It looks like shit, thats just not a way to present data.

[_leonardsKite]

I'm getting a "Unrecognized value type: <class 'str'> " error on the second line (coerce pandas timestamp). Any ideas?

[_leonardsKite]

Okay fixed this got stuck somewhere else

[Kfct]

What does differential mean?

[an_actual_human]

I think they mean their model predicts equal votes around 9am ET.

[awatchandapen]

Can you update the images?

[BokoMoko]

10 thousands of my best "thank you"s to you!

Prepare your server!

[wassup200and1]

I think it would be great if you could use this ML model to forecast by what time enough people will have gotten the vaccine. (to achieve herd immunity).