Modeling Voter Choice to Predict the Final Outcome of Two-Stage Elections

Modeling Voter Choice to Predict the Final Outcome of Two-Stage Elections PDF Author: Wagner A. Kamakura
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 18

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Book Description
Most election forecasting research to date has been conducted in the context of single-round elections. However, more than 40 countries in the world employ a two-stage process, where actual voting data are available between the first and the second rounds to help politicians understand their position in relation to each other and to voter preferences and to help them predict the final outcome of the election. In this study we take advantage of the theoretical foundation on voter behavior from the political science literature and the recent methodological advances in choice modeling to develop a Nested Logit Factor Model of voter choice which we use to predict the final outcome of two stage elections and gain insights about the underlying political landscape. We apply the proposed model to data from the first stage and predict the final outcome of two stage elections based on the inferences made from the first stage results. We demonstrate how our proposed model can help politicians understand their competitive position immediately after the first round of actual voting and test its predictive accuracy in the run-off election across 11 different state governorship elections.

Modeling Voter Choice to Predict the Final Outcome of Two-Stage Elections

Modeling Voter Choice to Predict the Final Outcome of Two-Stage Elections PDF Author: Wagner A. Kamakura
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 18

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Book Description
Most election forecasting research to date has been conducted in the context of single-round elections. However, more than 40 countries in the world employ a two-stage process, where actual voting data are available between the first and the second rounds to help politicians understand their position in relation to each other and to voter preferences and to help them predict the final outcome of the election. In this study we take advantage of the theoretical foundation on voter behavior from the political science literature and the recent methodological advances in choice modeling to develop a Nested Logit Factor Model of voter choice which we use to predict the final outcome of two stage elections and gain insights about the underlying political landscape. We apply the proposed model to data from the first stage and predict the final outcome of two stage elections based on the inferences made from the first stage results. We demonstrate how our proposed model can help politicians understand their competitive position immediately after the first round of actual voting and test its predictive accuracy in the run-off election across 11 different state governorship elections.

Using Voter-Choice Modeling to Plan the Final Campaign in Runoff Elections

Using Voter-Choice Modeling to Plan the Final Campaign in Runoff Elections PDF Author: Wagner A. Kamakura
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Even though runoff elections are one of the most (if not the most) common forms of presidential elections in the world, voter-choice behavior in these two-round elections has been rarely researched. Two-round elections provide unique opportunities for both political analyst and consultant. They allow political analysts to apply their voter-choice models to actual voting behavior, rather than voting intentions, on a multi-party election on the first round, and validate their predictions on a two-party election in the final round. They provide political consultants and candidates with rich and factual data on voter preferences, revealed through the voting behavior observed in the first round, which can guide the planning and implementation of their final campaign. We use results from the four most recent Brazilian presidential elections to demonstrate how voter-choice models can be applied to guide the political campaign in runoff elections. First, we apply a first-order Markov model to the two rounds and show that the two surviving candidates from the first round must focus their attention towards the voters for the eliminated candidates in the second round. We then apply a voter-choice model to the results from the first round in the most recent election (2014) to demonstrate how the political analyst and consultant can use the vote counts observed in the first round to better deploy the remaining campaign resources for the second round during the short time left before the final vote.

Accounting for Voter Heterogeneity Within and Across Districts with a Factor-Analytic Voter-Choice Model

Accounting for Voter Heterogeneity Within and Across Districts with a Factor-Analytic Voter-Choice Model PDF Author: Wagner A. Kamakura
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
In this study, we propose a model of individual voter behavior that can be applied to aggregate data at the district (or precinct) levels while accounting for differences in political preferences across districts and across voters within each district. Our model produces a mapping of the competing candidates and electoral districts on a latent ''issues'' space that describes how political preferences in each district deviate from the average voter and how each candidate caters to average voter preferences within each district. We formulate our model as a random-coefficients nested logit model in which the voter first evaluates the candidates to decide whether or not to cast his or her vote, and then chooses the candidate who provides him or her with the highest value. Because we allow the random coefficient to vary not only across districts but also across unobservable voters within each district, the model avoids the Independence of Irrelevant Alternatives Assumption both across districts and within each district, thereby accounting for the cannibalization of votes among similar candidates within and across voting districts. We illustrate our proposed model by calibrating it to the actual voting data from the first stage of a two-stage state governor election in the Brazilian state of Santa Catarina, and then using the estimates to predict the final outcome of the second stage.

A Behavioral Theory of Elections

A Behavioral Theory of Elections PDF Author: Jonathan Bendor
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 069113507X
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 268

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Book Description
Most theories of elections assume that voters and political actors are fully rational. This title provides a behavioral theory of elections based on the notion that all actors - politicians as well as voters - are only boundedly rational.

The American Voter

The American Voter PDF Author: Angus Campbell
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226092542
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 576

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Book Description
On voting behavior in the United States

Reasoning and Choice

Reasoning and Choice PDF Author: Paul M. Sniderman
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521407700
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 328

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Book Description
A major new theoretical explanation of how ordinary people decide what to favour and what to oppose politically.

Forecasting Elections

Forecasting Elections PDF Author: Michael S. Lewis-Beck
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 184

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Book Description
All political scientists aim to explain politics. In addition to this goal, Michael Lewis-Beck and Tom Rice aim to forecast political events, specifically election results. In "Forecasting Elections" the authors systematically develop easy-to-understand models based on national economic and political measures to forecast eleciton results for the U.S. presidency, House of Representatives, Senate, governorships, and state legislatures. For comparative purposes, the more complex French electoral system is studied. In the final chapter the authors instruct readers on how to use the models to make their own forecasts of future elections. -- From publisher's description.

Collective Decision-Making:

Collective Decision-Making: PDF Author: Norman Schofield
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 9401587671
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 430

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Book Description
In the last decade the techniques of social choice theory, game theory and positive political theory have been combined in interesting ways so as to pro vide a common framework for analyzing the behavior of a developed political economy. Social choice theory itself grew out of the innovative attempts by Ken neth Arrow (1951) and Duncan Black (1948, 1958) to extend the range of economic theory in order to deal with collective decision-making over public goods. Later work, by William Baumol (1952), and James Buchanan and Gordon Tullock (1962), focussed on providing an "economic" interpretation of democratic institutions. In the same period Anthony Downs (1957) sought to model representative democracy and elections while William Riker (1962) made use of work in cooperative game theory (by John von Neumann and Oscar Morgenstern, 1944) to study coalition behavior. In my view, these "rational choice" analyses of collective decision-making have their antecedents in the arguments of Adam Smith (1759, 1776), James Madison (1787) and the Marquis de Condorcet (1785) about the "design" of political institutions. In the introductory chapter to this volume I briefly describe how some of the current normative and positive aspects of social choice date back to these earlier writers.

The SAGE Handbook of Electoral Behaviour

The SAGE Handbook of Electoral Behaviour PDF Author: Kai Arzheimer
Publisher: SAGE
ISBN: 147395925X
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 1382

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Book Description
The study of voting behaviour remains a vibrant sub-discipline of political science. The Handbook of Electoral Behaviour is an authoritative and wide ranging survey of this dynamic field, drawing together a team of the world′s leading scholars to provide a state-of-the-art review that sets the agenda for future study. Taking an interdisciplinary approach and focusing on a range of countries, the handbook is composed of eight parts. The first five cover the principal theoretical paradigms, establishing the state of the art in their conceptualisation and application, and followed by chapters on their specific challenges and innovative applications in contemporary voting studies. The remaining three parts explore elements of the voting process to understand their different effects on vote outcomes. The SAGE Handbook of Electoral Behaviour is an essential benchmark publication for advanced students, researchers and practitioners in the fields of politics, sociology, psychology and research methods.

Persuasive Peers

Persuasive Peers PDF Author: Andy Baker
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691205795
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 394

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Book Description
How voting behavior in Latin America is influenced by social networks and everyday communication among peers In Latin America’s new democracies, political parties and mass partisanship are not deeply entrenched, leaving many votes up for grabs during election campaigns. In a typical presidential election season, between one-quarter and one-half of all voters—figures unheard of in older democracies—change their voting intentions across party lines in the months before election day. Advancing a new theory of Latin American voting behavior, Persuasive Peers argues that political discussions within informal social networks among family members, friends, neighbors, coworkers, and acquaintances explain this volatility and exert a major influence on final voting choices. Relying on unique survey and interview data from Latin America, the authors show that weakly committed voters defer to their politically knowledgeable peers, creating vast amounts of preference change as political campaigns unfold. Peer influences also matter for unwavering voters, who tend to have social contacts that reinforce their voting intentions. Social influence increases political conformity among voters within neighborhoods, states, and even entire regions, and the authors illustrate how party machines use the social topography of electorates to buy off well-connected voters who can magnify the impact of the payoff. Persuasive Peers demonstrates how everyday communication shapes political outcomes in Latin America’s less-institutionalized democracies.