FantasySCOTUS Prediction Tracker – Crowdsourcing Supreme Court Predictions

January 17th, 2011

Building on the wisdom of the crowds, the FantasySCOTUS Prediction Tracker provides predictions of how the Court will vote for all cases this term. Based on the collective knowledge of our 6,000 members, and the predictions they make, the Prediction Tracker aggregates the individual votes, and calculates a predicted outcome for each case. So far our Prediction Tracker has accurately predicted the 6 cases decided this term.

By crowdsourcing predictions, the FantasySCOTUS Case Tracker provides detailed prognostications for how each Justice will vote. All predictions indicate how highly ranked the predictor is in the FantasySCOTUS league. This allows you to weigh the accuracies of the individual predictions by measuring the ranking of the predictor. Experience shows that higher ranked predictors make better prediction, and their guesses should be trusted more.

Here are the predictions for Snyder v. Phelps, which considers the Westboro Baptist protest at the funeral of slain Marine Matthew Snyder. Fifty-seven percent of voters predict an affirm vote by the Court. Most importantly, 56% predict that Justice Kennedy will vote to affirm the 4th Circuit. Curiously, only 49% of members predict that Chief Justice Roberts will vote to affirm.