Corrections from the past week.

Corrections from the past week.

Corrections from the past week.

Slate's mistakes.
Dec. 10 2004 12:32 PM

Corrections

In the Dec. 9 "Human Nature," David Kenner and William Saletan originally said that two automated pollsters (Rasmussen and SurveyUSA) beat three human pollsters (Gallup, Zogby, and Mason-Dixon) at predicting the spread between Bush and Kerry in 2004 battleground states. This was incorrect. The automated pollsters prevailed by (and the calculations originally published by Slate reflected) a different standard: the gap between Kerry's vote share in each poll and Kerry's vote share in the official returns, plus the gap between Bush's vote share in that poll and Bush's vote share in the official returns. The authors recalculated the average error for each pollster using the spread method and determined that by that standard, Mason-Dixon beat SurveyUSA. They apologize to Mason-Dixon and to indignant humans everywhere.

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In a Dec. 7 "Chatterbox," Timothy Noah misidentified the city that Bush elector Richie Robb is mayor of. It's South Charleston, W. Va., not Charleston, W. Va.

In the Dec. 5 "Today's Papers" column, Keelin McDonell originally stated that two appeals courts that rule on Texas death-penalty cases were in the state of Texas. In fact, one is in Louisiana.

In the Dec. 2 "Dispatch" from Romania, Sarah E. Richards misspelled the name of the director of Arapamesu. He is Calin Blaga, not Braga.

In a Nov. 10 "Brave New World," Josh McHugh originally stated that 160 members of the Mexican attorney general's staff were implanted with RFID chips. While Applied Digital Solutions, the company that makes the chips, has circulated the 160 figure, a spokeswoman for the Mexican attorney general's office now says that only 18 staffers received chip implants.

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If you believe you have found an inaccuracy in a Slate story, please send an e-mail to corrections@slate.com, and we will investigate. General comments should be posted in "The Fray," our reader discussion forum.