ELECTORAL VOTE TALLY: BUSH 295, KERRY 243 — which, reportedly, represents a widening of the gap in Bush’s favor from last week. Go figure.

UPDATE: Hmm. Reader Daniel Cohen notes that the gap has widened since September 30, but narrowed since September 28. He also writes: “In addition, starting today, the site changed the way the state polls are used. instead of always using the latest polls, he is now using an average of the three most recent polls… so data starting today can’t be compared to the data from previous to today.”

True — here are the changes, which I hadn’t noticed. Meanwhile, though, this tally from Tripias seems to agree with the above state-by-state scoring. And so does this one. I have no idea how reliable this stuff is, but it’s interesting that it’s not really in accordance with the general sentiment regarding the polls.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Here’s Larry Sabato’s page, which calls it Bush 284, Kerry 254. I have to say that I remain skeptical of all of this stuff, and think that Daniel Moore’s observation is on-target:

I suspect that polls are interesting and somewhat useful for us to follow the election by (though I tend to only put stock in them in that I can brag to friends), but I suspect that the best way to tell if Kerry picked anything up from the debate is if he starts spending money in any of those swing states that he had pulled ads from.

Good point. Anybody know how that’s going?

YET ANOTHER UPDATE: The Washington Post reports that Kerry is abandoning Virginia and putting the resources to work in Wisconsin and Minnesota, which I would have thought should have been fairly safe states for him.

MORE: Stephen Green calls it 295 Bush, 243 Kerry.

And there’s even a contest, for money.