Released on: September 5, 2008, 1:30 am

Press Release Author: Pollyvote

Industry: Management

Press Release Summary: Polly the parrot is back!
Having provided near-perfect predictions for the 2004 election, Polly
(http://www.pollyvote.com) is back for forecasting this year’s US Presidential
Election. Polly predicts the Republican’s share of the popular two-party vote.


Press Release Body: Aggregating information from different forecasting methods,
Polly provides a daily updated prediction of the election outcome.

[b]Based on scientific evidence[/b]
As shown by J. Scott Armstrong, Professor at the Wharton School at the University of
Pennsylvania, combining forecasts reduces forecast error. Under ideal conditions,
such combined forecasts can even be more accurate than their most accurate
components. Polly follows the principle of combining and averages forecasts from
four components: opinion polls, a prediction market, expert judgments and currently
seven quantitative models.

Thereby, Polly accounts for error implied in the component forecasts. For example,
research has shown that opinion polls can not be interpreted as a forecast of the
election outcome, especially early in the campaign. Thus, Polly discounts poll data
based on historical poll records to achieve more reliable forecasts.

[b]Polly’s current forecast[/b]
For the last two weeks, Polly’s forecast has been quite stable, predicting about
48.0% for the Republican’s share of the popular two-party vote. Thus, currently,
Polly sees Barack Obama ahead by approximately 4.0%. Ever since her re-launch in
August 2007 through to August 2008, Polly predicted that the Democratic candidate
would win. As shown in the PollyGraph, by August 2008, none of her components
predict a Republicans win.

Pollyvote is part of the Political Forecasting Special Interest Group at
http://www.forecastingprinciples.com, a resource for scholars and practitioners
interested in forecasting elections and other political events. It is supported by
the International Institute of Forecasters.


Web Site: http://www.pollyvote.com

Contact Details: Andreas Graefe
Institute for Technology Assessment and Systems Analysis (ITAS)
Research Center (Forschungszentrum) Karlsruhe (FZK)
P.O. Box: 3640
76021 Karlsruhe, Germany