onlinegamers.org

Apologies to the For Dummies folks. Mynn suggested the title.

Along with her suggestions, I’ve pulled information from fivethirtyeight and Wikipedia.

Nearly every state and the District of Columbia are winner-take-all states: the candidate that wins the state wins all of their electors. Maine and Nebraska, use a tiered system where a single elector is chosen within each Congressional district and two electors are chosen by statewide popular vote. If you’re in Maine or Nebraska, your vote matters insofar as your district’s elector. You’ll have to find local data for yourself.

Now for the “Am I Super-Red or Super-Blue” vote, or “Where won’t I ‘hurt’ the national election?” states. The important states according to fivethirtyeight.com are “Tipping point” states; states that are decisive in a close election for a given percentage of simulations, the most “swinging” of swing states, which are as follows:

This means that if you live in any of these “Blue states“, a vote for Barr will not statistically hurt Obama (states with Barr already on the ballot in bold):

Conversely, the “Red states” where a vote for Barr will not statistically hurt McCain (again, Barr already on the ballot in bold states):

Ballot access is currently being litigated in Oklahoma and Pennsylvania, but Barr is likely to be running as an “independent” in states that will not allow the Libertarians to run as a party.