I’m a Kiwi with a science and statistics background and an interest in politics.
The original motivation for this site came from the 2008 NZ General Election. I was an avid reader of US political sites FiveThirtyEight and Pollster leading up to the 2008 US Presidential Election. The NZ Election was held the same week and I thought it would be interesting to try to do a similar polling and election simulation site with a focus on New Zealand politics.
I originally built a simple simulation to try to predict the results of the 2008 NZ Election based on the polling averages given on Wikipedia. It was a bit rushed – and a bit rough around the edges – but friends and family showed interest so after the election I decided to try and do the same again, this time starting from scratch with the raw polling data. It’s still a work in progress, but this site is intended to showcase the results so far for anybody who might be interested.
I hope to write up a proper explanation of how the poll-averaging and simulation works in the near future. If possible I will also try to make the polling information — and maybe some of the code — available before the 2011 NZ General Election, just in case anybody else wants to build on it. Constructive criticism is welcomed.
