Are accurate election predictions luck or skill?

Ongoing thanks to Count Binface, Tom Wilson and Dave Rowntree who have helped hugely with this video series.

CORRECTIONS
- None yet, let me know if you spot anything!

Filming by Matt Parker
Editing by Gus Melton
Written and performed by Matt Parker
Produced by Nicole Jacobus
Music by Howard Carter
Opening titles by Alex Genn-Bash
Design by Simon Wright and Adam Robinson

MATT PARKER: Stand-up Mathematician

[standupmaths]

PS You can't all suggest the time Hannah and I measured the size of the Earth. Find a different mistake!

[SellymeYT]

2:53 My favourite example was when you tried to calculate the radius of the earth and were frankly lucky to end up with a positive number.

[frederf]

"I had to draw a line somewhere." Yes, Matt, we know how graphs work.

[dojelnotmyrealname]

10:24 Note that ballot boxes can not only be geographically separated, but also chronologically. Some demographics, particularly age brackets, will prefer showing up early or late to elections.

[angelruiz]

2:54 My favorite 'mistake' was when someone improve your code by 40832277770%. Not necessary a mistake but being that inefficient could definitely be conidered one. You are still the greatest as you just go ahead and admit it! Keep up the 'good' work.😂

[azlhiacneg]

Hahaha don't worry, Chinese Stand-up Maths has a list of all your mistakes we found during the translation process, if you ever want the list you know who to call~ (Also for everyone else, leave mistakes you have found under this comment, I guess)😆

[jh-ecsi]

"Why didn't you know to count the votes?" they ask of the man representing the candidate with a bin for a face.

[sigton]

Matt and Hanna's estimation of the earth radius/circumference has to be the greatest inaccurate calculation you have ever put to video!

[jeffreybernath]

My favorite "way-off" Matt maths moment is in "Measure the Earth’s Radius! (with this one complicated trick), " at 22:28, when Matt estimates the Earth's radius at 875 km. That is my favorite moment, by more than an order of magnitude (coincidentally enough)!

[kelpsie]

You know, I think this is the first Ground News ad I've seen that actually makes a point to show that it's available for other locations. Canada, in particular. I would have checked them out sooner had I known that.

[vlc-cosplayer]

"Am I a mathematical genius... or were those Parker elections?"

[Petch]

4:26 and 8:15
I wish political commentary was more like this.
commentator 1: I think I can add to your point, here is my python calculations
commentator 2: I remade your plot to show the data from another angle. And here you can see how I can arrange the data to show a similar plot to the one you made.
Very respectful. I love it 😂.

[RaptureWillRiseAgain]

Noticed you have Jurassic Park stuff in the background - funnily enough in the original Jurassic Park book, there is a part where mathematician Ian Malcolm reviews data for the park and notices inconsistencies, which is what tipped them off that the dinos were breeding.

[markwallace]

In regard to around the 12:00 mark, the AEC (Australian Electoral Commission) publishes all that data. I know I'm weird, but I've found it rather interesting to go through all the data they publish. You can see the complete breakdown of votes for each individual polling station. Because we do preferential (aka ranked) voting, you can see who gets knocked out and where their preference vote gets distributed to for each round. For each electorate you can see how the votes were made (early/postal/absentee/etc). You can see first preference votes, swing, informal count, turnout %, and pretty much any detail you want. No mathematical sampling and expanding, just the hard raw data. I do like our AEC & how elections a run, but we still end up with the same mostly crappy politicians though.

[coconuts]

1:16 "part 3... of 3... I swear"
Matt my guy, if we didn't want a part 4, we wouldn't be watching a part 3 now would we.
Keep up the amazing content 😂

[geheimemartha]

In France everybody can look up the results of each candidate in any specific polling station (as well as the turnout and other data). It's all official and available on the government's website, i think it's pretty nice

[victorwindahl]

We all know that everyone are thinking about the parker square

[rzeqdw]

2:55 is my favourite example of you being wrong, because you're saying you're often wrong. But you're not wrong in my heart

[derekjc]

Having been a counting agent for the Green Party - as well as Parliamentary Candidate agent and council "paper" candidate - you are correct. Two things we need: One is looking at the polling boxes from specific polling stations to confirm which areas support the party, whether poorer or student dominated areas, in the case of the Green Party. The second reason is to get some understanding of the possibility of winning each council ward or the parliamentary seat. You are not allowed - by law - to share this information outside of the count location. But some parties - mentioning no names - were illegally sharing information with probably a central party location, and were obtaining possibilities of winning certain seats before they were officially announced.

[grcrocker]

I am so impressed by how you are using your platform to promote enthusiasm about voting