Geekiest electoral-vote predictor site

I’ve made the rounds of quite a few sites that predict the outcome of the presidential race. My favorite, because it is the geekiest (and consequently, most believable) is the geekly named “Electoral College Meta-Analysis.”

It’s the product of a Princeton professor whose specialties are biophysics and neuroscience. Dr. Wang says that he makes heavy use of probability and statistics in analyzing complex experimental data, so I’m ready to believe his regularly updated meta-analysis of state polls.

Especially because today he is showing Kerry over Bush, 281 to 257 (with undecideds included). If you visit his site, scroll down to see the projected blue state/red state map of the United States where the size of each state is proportional to its electoral college votes.

This gives a whole different impression than the geographic blue/red map we see all the time. The thing is, a lot of red (Bush) states are pretty big yet don’t have many people. On Dr. Wang’s map the country looks evenly divided—which, of course, it is.