Undecided voters have probably made up their minds. They just don’t know it yet. U. Virginia psychologist Brian Nosek and colleagues got 25,000 people to take an online test (you can try it yourself). The test mixes up pictures of Obama and McCain with “good” words like “friend” and “bad” words like “enemy,” and asks you to press a key through several cycles of screens.
On average more undecided voters reported explicitly feeling slightly warmer toward Obama than McCain, but Nosek’s implicit measurements showed the undecided subjects had a slight preference for McCain over Obama.
Color me skeptical: I scored a slight preference for the candidate I already didn’t mail in my ballot for.
[Image: gapersblock]
The problem with this is this: I’m an undecided voter. If I took this test, I’d lean all the way towards Obama. How am I undecided then? Well, I’m undecided about voting for Obama or one of the third party candidates.
That’s when the Heisenberg compensator kicks in.