Elections+Resources

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PenPal News Login Site:
http://beta.penpalnews.com/login

Healthcare Link: http://www.timeforkids.com/news/election-2012-health-care/44481

Student News Sources:
[|Scholastic magazine:] This has a mix of news stories, an electoral college map, and interactive games. There are video features, too.

[|Brainpop's election center:] This has a bunch of videos. Reember you can access them with the username WMSlibrary and password RAIDERS.

[|Time for Kids:] They will have some election coverage, written for middle school students.

[|CNN Student News:] CNN creates a 5 minute news program every weekday. It will have some politics coverage and some added explanation of things like the "unemployment rate".

News resources:
[|FiveThirtyEight Blog:] My favorite site--it has all kinds of analysis of polls, simulated elections, and interesting things to learn about the math behind all this election talk. Look around the site, as there is a lot there.

[|CNN] : CNN has a reputation of being more favorable to Democratic candidates. Look for that perspective as you examine what they focus on and how they do it. This gets you to the home page, click on the politics tab for more coverage.


 * Fox News has a reputation of being more favorable to Republican candidates. Look for that perspective as you examine what they focus on and how they do it. his gets you to the home page, click on the politics tab for more coverage.

[|Politico:] This website has daily coverage of a lot of political stories. For good and for bad, the sight covers politics like a "sport"- the good part is that it is exciting, but the bad part is many of the articles focus more on the strategy and consequences of things going on rather than going in depth on the issues themselves.

[|CSPAN:] Lots of video andtext coverage here from the cable channel that covers political news. It can be fairly in depth--look at the categories at the bottom of the main page.

Candidate Websites:
[|Barack Obama] (Democratic Party) and "word cloud" from the Democratic convention [|MItt Romney] (Republican Party) and [|"word cloud"] from the Republican convention

There are other people running too. These people are sometimes called "third party" candidates. Historically, third party candidates have never won, but have sometimes changed the results of some states by "taking away" votes from one of the two major candidates. These candidates often run to get a certain issue discussed and/or to be part of the debates.

[|Jill Stein] (Green Party) [|Gary Johnson] Libertarian Party) [|Virgil Goode] (Constitution Party)

Electoral College:
[|Electoral College: How does it work?] This is from The Economist. It is a video that is a bit complicated, but has some great visuals. It explains the results of the last three elections.

Fact Checking/Campaign Ads:
[|Fact Check the Ads:] This is a partnership between USA Today and Factcheck.org to look at what's truth, what's exaggerated, and what's just wrong in political ads from all sides.

[|FactCheck,org]: Even more information about what is accurate and inaccurate in the statements candidates make.

[|Politfact:] This site from a the Tampa Bay Times (a newspaper) won the Pulitzer prize for reporting a few years ago. It looks at candidate claims and judges them to be true, part true, or false. There is a great explanation of the issues and why they graded it the way they did. It even has an Iphone app!!

Living Room Candidate: This has a collection of poltical ads from the last thrity years. You can see how ads have changed a lot in some ways, and not at all in others. It will have 2012 ads as well.

[|I side with...] Is a nicely done online quiz that has you answer questions and tells you which candidate(s) you agree with most frequently. I love that it includes major and minor candidates. One hint" if you are not sure of how to answer something, click on the "more options" menu--it often gives you something you agree with more strongly.

[|Candidate Match:] does the same thing around 14 issues. It is only about Obama and Romney, but the design is nice, and it has quotes from both connected to each issue

Prediction Tools
[|FiveThirtyEight Blog:] My favorite site--it has all kinds of analysis of polls, simulated elections, and interesting things to learn about the math behind all this election talk. Look around the site, as there is a lot there.Washington Post prediction tool: Enter data about the economy and the president's approval rating and see what the Washington Post thinks the chances are that President Obama is re-elected. There are also ways to look at previous several elections.

[|Electoral-vote:] This is a simple site that shows what the "electoral point" results would be IF the election was held today, and IF the polls are accurate. Scroll over each state to see the most recent polling and t compare to previous elections.

[|New York Times prediction "bubbles":]A very cool visual! The first screen shows what they are predicting right now based on polls. It displays the map of the US traditionally and in the form of how many electoral college votes a state has ( ie- states with more people literally look bigger on the map).

But wait, there is more....The NYT looks at what states are considered "tossups" and has a bunch of animated scenarios about what might happen. Click on them on the top and you can see there is even a way of there being a tie!