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Both parties manipulated statistics during this election to set their preferred narrative, and sewed confusion in the minds of millions of voters.

There are two classic sins of data manipulation that were at work in this campaign: The first is that the Obama and Romney campaigns used different metrics, scales, and data points to discuss their respective track records and plans for the future, making it nearly impossible to compare apples to apples. The second is that both camps used metrics that lack context and relevance. The bottom line: Poor data and misleading metrics are bad for everyone except for the politicians who rely on them to set their narratives and confuse voters about what is “true.” And while this election is now over, the voting public must begin to demand more from our elected leaders if we want a more honest discussion and fairer use of facts in the future.

Here’s what we can do to stop being manipulated by bad data:

1. We’ve got to ask the “so what?” question more often. When presented with facts and figures, asking “so what?” forces our leaders to use data that reflect important changes.
2. How can we judge progress when each candidate uses different indicators of success? We must ask our leaders to agree upon a common set of measures and data points that reflect the public’s common interest.
3. Candidates need to put metrics in context and tell the whole story. At the same time, we voters must seek more information. It’s not enough to know the size of the deficit under Obama or to look at the number of jobs Romney outsourced in the private sector. These data points require a deeper look at the data, and we won’t get it until we ask for it.

A controversial election eve special that aired twice on the local ABC affiliate in Columbus triggered a wave of criticism on social media, prompting one local anchor to launch her own Twitter defense. And because the company behind the broadcast is about to expand its media holdings in the Buckeye State, this story may not be over yet.

First reported by Talking Points Memo, the left-leaning political news site, the special aired by WSYX focused on the economy, health care reform, and the September 11 attack on the Libyan embassy. Given the scant political coverage some local stations offer even as they rake in wads of campaign ad dollars, that sounds like a good thing. But as TPM’s Eric Lach wrote: “Rather than a side by side comparison of the two major party candidates, however, the special featured some of the most partisan criticisms of President Barack Obama, and spent relatively little time examining Republican nominee Mitt Romney.” As a result, “at times, it sounded more like Fox News than local news.” The half-hour special was produced by the Sinclair Broadcast Group, owner of WSYX and itself no stranger to controversy. In 2004, the company’s Washington bureau chief was fired after publicly criticizing the company’s decision to air parts of a documentary attacking John Kerry’s anti-war activities weeks before the election. That same year, Sinclair was surrounded by controversy when it barred seven of its ABC-affiliated stations from airing a Nightline episode that displayed the names and photos of 700 American soldiers killed in the Iraq war.

You didn't know it at the time, but when you logged into Facebook on Election Day, you became a subject in a mass social experiment.

You went about your day, clicked around Facebook, and you may have voted. Now your behavior is data that social scientists will scrutinize in the months ahead, asking one of the core questions of democracy: What makes people vote? If patterns from earlier research hold true, the experiment's designer James Fowler says that it is "absolutely plausible that Facebook drove a lot of the increase" in young-voter participation (thought to be up one percentage point from 2008 as a share of the electorate). It is, he continued, "even possible that Facebook is completely responsible."

[Commentary] Silicon Valley contributed more to President Barack Obama’s re-election campaign than Wall Street and Hollywood, according to a Nov. 3 San Francisco Chronicle report. The Valley contributed $14.7 million compared to $14.5 million from New York City and $6.3 million from the Beverly Hills crowd. During his many trips to Silicon Valley, the President made a number of promises. Now that he has won, the Valley expects him to keep his end of the bargain.

Here’s the wish list:

• Immigration reform: First and foremost, the technology world finds itself starved for talent. The Valley needs more H-1B visas to help grow its tech companies. And there is the need for a Startup Visa to allow foreign entrepreneurs to start new companies in the United States.
• Education: The Valley recognizes the importance of K-12 education, but it also wants to reform and improve the education system, reign in the escalating cost of higher education, and experiment with new models.
• Freedom and competition: The Valley wants an open Internet, and it wants competition in broadband so Americans can get better and cheaper connectivity.
• Invest in sustainable renewable energy solutions.
• Abolish software patents: The larger technology companies have invested fortunes in their patent portfolios. But senior executives have said to me privately that they would rather disarm than waste the time and money they presently do on patent wars.
• Fund basic research and improve research commercialization.
• Rewards for investments in innovative startups.

All told, the Valley’s academics and entrepreneurs want what the rest of the nation wants: thoughtful economic policy. Stanford Law’s Grundfest asks for “a sensible balance between revenue enhancement and entitlement reduction that puts the nation on responsible glide path to a manageable level of federal and state debt.” Heidi Roizen, a venture capitalist, says “it really is all about the economy. Our entrepreneurial engine can only fuel recovery if it is built on a firm base of rational fiscal policy.”