Monday, March 30, 2009

NPR's 2012 Bracket Results (2nd Round) Are Now Up

[Click Bracket to Enlarge or HERE to Vote in the Third Round]

Round three voting is now underway in NPR's Political March Madness (link above). And if round two is indicative (a significant increase over the first round's paltry number of upsets), the third round should be pretty unpredictable. I think it is safe to say that this thing has been hijacked in a way that Diebold could even appreciate.

But a Ron Paul-Barack Obama general election should be a fun one.

NPR does seem to be trying to combat this hijacking to some extent. There's a quick turnaround on round three voting. Results will be out on Wednesday April 1. [Then again, they have to fit this in before the real tournament ends next Monday.]


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4 comments:

Jack said...

OKAY. I voted for Huntsman. Paul's leading 99%-0%. And there are 3334 votes on that race. 217 on the one with the next most.

Obviously the quick turnaround, if anything, is making it worse.

All I can say is: we all should have seen this coming.

Jack said...

My other choices, by the way, were Ryan, Sanford, Pawlenty.

Josh Putnam said...

FHQ is safe in its relative anonymity. But that 99-0 margin is pretty good.

Good point on the quick turnaround, Jack. The splits between the Paul match up and the rest (in terms of votes cast) was basically 10:1 in round two and that's essentially where it is now.

Ah, technology. Ken Rudin's comments over at NPR were amusing. "I didn't say one person, one vote." Rules matter. Or in this case, lack of rules matters. Hey, is this any different than Obama's caucus strategy?

That's my Final Four as well (...given these choices).

Jack said...

Well it is March Madness, after all, and who better to provide madness than Ron Paul supporters?

I kid, I kid. Some of my best friends are Ron Paul supporters.

But I agree with Rudin's comments. No rules were broken, but it does kinda ruin it for everyone. And it's good in a way to remind us that Paul and his supporters are here to stay, and, for better or for worse, will have some impact (though marginalized enough to be limited) on American politics for a while.

On a side note, I have a feeling that my fellow Democrats (the second-most internet-oriented group, well behind Ron Paul supporters) were behind the sabotage of Palin, as the number of total votes wasn't so disproportionate there. Of course, a few Democrats will do this in reality, too, in open primaries in 2012.