US election result a triumph for number nerds

… According to pundits, Mitt Romney and Barack Obama were on a knife’s edge – the race was too close to call, and the election count could take weeks. …

Polling data analysts with a background in complex maths, rather than realpolitik, pored over poll after poll, to not only pick the winner and the margins, but to arrive at the correct result weeks before voters hit the polling booths.

It has started a debate over who really knows politics best: the political pundits or the pollsters. [cont.]

Will Ockenden, ABC.net.au

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