The Council for a Livable World’s 2012 Election Contest has officially ended and after going through the 1,395 entries, we have determined the winners.
The first prize of $250 goes to Ben Malley of San Francisco, CA. Ben is a student at UC Hastings College of the Law in San Francisco and works for the Institute for Public Accuracy and the Tides Foundation. He heard about the contest through his parents, who are Council members.
Ben used a combination of polling averages (excluding anything by Rasmussen) and commentary from the blog Daily Kos to come up with his election predictions. Maybe Ben’s middle name should be “Accuracy.” He correctly predicted President Obama’s total number of electoral votes: 332.
There was a three-way tie for second place: Carl Foner of Brooklyn, NY, Shirley Ranieri of Wappingers Falls, NY and our own Guy Stevens.
Unfortunately for him (and fortunately for the Council) Guy is Chief Operating Officer of Council for a Livable World and is ineligible to receive any money.
Carl is a Technology Analyst at Conde Nast. To come up with his answers, he used a combination of political news across the spectrum and a dash of Nate Silver’s FiveThirtyEight blog. Carl called the contest in Florida’s 18th Congressional District for CLW-endorsed candidate Patrick Murphy (D). Great foresight into one of the closest, and last called, races in the country.
Shirley retired from IBM in 1998, having spent 27 years there as a secretary and executive assistant. She is an avid baker and Mets fan. While baking and going about her daily routine, Shirley listens to political news from MSNBC with a little CNN and FOX to get a different perspective. Her mantra is “The most important thing you own is a good reputation.” Now she has a reputation as a top-notch political prognosticator, which we are sure her children and grand-children are proud of.
Shirley is also from Guy’s hometown, where we suspect they are putting polling data in the water supply.
Both Carl and Shirley will receive the $150 second prize.
Thank you all, and on to the next contest!
