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By Mare Ahmed Monday, July 29th, 2024
Background
Bluebonnet fellow and rising junior at Brown University, Asher Labovich, founded 24cast.org. The organization developed by Brown Political Review was created by 13 Brown University students. Just a few weeks ago, they launched 24cast with an open-source, machine-learning powered election predictive tool. According to Lebovich, “It is the most transparent and accurate election model predictor”. When asked about his inspirations, the 20-year old mentioned the likes of Nate Silver and Steve Kornacki. Asher was impressed by how they were able to get critical data out to voters. It was Asher’s interest in both mathematics and politics that piqued his curiosity on how the two meet.
Bluebonnet Experience
As a Bluebonnet fellow / project lead he worked with a youth-led organization called Rise that is advocating for higher education to be more financially accessible. Asher notes how vital Bluebonnet Data was to his interest in working in the political data and technology space: "Bluebonnet pulled me in and I haven’t left the political data field since."
In 2022, Asher walked into a classroom and saw a student on campus writing on the board in an attempt to predict the next election. Asher started learning R and applied his skills to personal projects. A hands-on professor taught him a lot of Python as well. Asher started working on 24cast in 2022 and then continued to work with a formal team in 2023. Asher noticed that machine learning is underutilized because there is an impression that it is a black box. Asher is challenging that sentiment by improving the models with an emphasis on interpretability, thorough explanations of the models, and open-sourcing all of the work.
The Future of 24cast
Looking ahead, 24cast.org is not just working on election predictive models; the team just developed an interactive money tracker that predicates how much additional money raised would impact the margin for either Democrats or Republicans in senate or house races in any state. Finances play such a pivotal role in races so it is important to see how more donations in a certain race could potentially impact the race. Their approach is to integrate various factors—such as economic factors and public sentiment on different issues to see how it moves the needle.
Beyond predictive accuracy, 24cast.org aims to democratize political engagement. Their platform enables ordinary people to decide where to canvass and strategically donate based on predictive models. This grassroots approach underscores their commitment to enhancing civic participation and transparency in electoral processes. To explore the future of election predictions and learn more about their initiatives, visit 24cast.org.
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