The Presidential Campaign and Election, Explained by MIT

In case you haven’t noticed the commercials and advertisements from candidates and PACs—not to mention campaign speeches—Election Day is approaching.

Listed below are recent MIT-related items from faculty, researchers, and alumni that relate to the U.S. presidential campaign. Topics include a visit to campus from reps of President Barack Obama and Governor Mitt Romney, mobile apps that clarify ad rhetoric, the intricacies of the U.S. voting system, and faculty opinions on the candidates.

Have you noticed any other MIT-related election stories? Let us know in the comments below or on Facebook, and we'll add them to our list through Election Day.

• "Explained: Margin of error" (MIT News): Professor Adam Berinsky explains how one poll of likely voters can show Romney leading Obama when another poll, covering the same time period, shows Obama ahead of Romney.
• "Why You Can't Vote Online" (MIT Technology Review): Fifteen years into the Web revolution, Internet voting still presents very difficult problems.
• "How Jonathan Gruber became Mr. Mandate" (MIT News): The MIT professor's health insurance modeling helped create the legislation for the Affordable Care Act—one of the election's central issues.
• "Scholars ponder better ways to elect a president" (MIT News): A recent conference asked, "Should the U.S. choose its president through the Electoral College? And how should people be allowed to register and vote?"
• "Presidential campaigns offer energetic energy debate at MIT" (MIT News): Representatives from the Obama and Romney campaigns squared off in a debate hosted by the MIT Energy Initiative.
• "The state of the U.S. election system" (MIT News): A study notes gains in voting-machine technologies, but warns they could be cancelled out by errors introduced through mail and Internet voting.
• "3 Questions: Charles Stewart sizes up the 2012 election" (MIT News): The MIT political scientist answers questions about the presidential campaign, America’s shifting demographics, and tossup senate races.
• "Impact of the Presidential Election on Tax and Health Policy" (Faculty Forum Online): In a video chat, Professor Andrea Campbell discuss taxes and health care, and take questions from the worldwide MIT community. (Infinite Connection login is required.)
• "Obama vs. Romney on China" (CNN): With research assistance from Hanna Zhu '13, CNN compares the candidates’ position on China.
• "Clarifying Political Ads, One Commercial at a Time" (Slice of MIT): ReactVid uses "credible crowdsourcing" to determine the validity behind statements in political advertisements.
• "You Can’t Hide from this App, Super PACs" (Slice of MIT): The Super PAC App works like a song identification app, but for political commercials, and can decipher who paid for the ad, what claims they make, and whether those claims are factual.