What is the goal of the PollyVote project? The PollyVote project uses the high-profile application of predicting U.S. presidential election outcomes to demonstrate advances in forecasting research. When the PollyVote was first launched in 2004, the original goal was to demonstrate the benefits of combining forecasts. Since then, the PollyVote team has expanded its focus by analyzing the value of n
ew forecasting methods such as expectation surveys and index models. Who is behind the PollyVote? The PollyVote was launched in 2004 by forecasting expert J. Scott Armstrong and the political scientists Alfred Cuzán and Randy Jones. In 2007, Andreas Graefe joined the project. Since 2016, Mario Haim is part of the team. What's up with the parrot? Polly the parrot is the mascot of the PollyVote project. In many respects, Polly is an ordinary parrot. She is completely apolitical and knows nothing about politics or voting behavior, and merely parrots what she hears from others. That said, Polly is special in her knowledge about evidence-based forecasting methods and procedures, and she can calculate simple averages. Therefore, Polly is able to apply one of the simplest and yet most effective principles of forecasting, namely combining forecasts. Polly thus illustrates that you don't have to be a domain expert in order to be able to create accurate forecasts. How is PollyVote funded? The PollyVote project received no outside funding for forecasting the three U.S. presidential elections from 2004 to 2012 but was operated by the team members in their free time. For forecasting the 2013 German election, the project was financially supported by the Center for Advanced Studies at LMU Munich. presidential elections, we received funding by the Tow Center at Columbia Journalism School and the Volkswagen Foundation to provide data-driven coverage based on the PollyVote data.
