Understanding Elections through Statistics

Understanding Elections through Statistics PDF Author: Ole J. Forsberg
Publisher: CRC Press
ISBN: 1000205746
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 227

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Book Description
Elections are random events. From individuals deciding whether to vote, to people deciding for whom to vote, to election authorities deciding what to count, the outcomes of competitive democratic elections are rarely known until election day...or beyond. Understanding Elections through Statistics: Polling, Prediction, and Testing explores this random phenomenon from two points of view: predicting the election outcome using opinion polls and testing the election outcome using government-reported data. Written for those with only a brief introduction to statistics, this book takes you on a statistical journey from how polls are taken to how they can—and should—be used to estimate current popular opinion. Once an understanding of the election process is built, we turn toward testing elections for evidence of unfairness. While holding elections has become the de facto proof of government legitimacy, those electoral processes may hide a dirty little secret of the government illicitly ensuring a favorable election outcome. This book includes these features designed to make your statistical journey more enjoyable: Vignettes of elections, including maps, to provide concrete bases for the material In-chapter cues to help one avoid the heavy math—or to focus on it End-of-chapter problems designed to review and extend that which was covered in the chapter Many opportunities to turn the power of the R statistical environment to the enclosed election data files, as well as to those you find interesting From these features, it is clear the audience for this book is quite diverse. This text provides mathematics for those interested in mathematics, but also offers detours for those who just want a good read and a deeper understanding of elections. Author Ole J. Forsberg holds PhDs in both political science and statistics. He currently teaches mathematics and statistics in the Department of Mathematics at Knox College in Galesburg, IL.

Understanding Elections through Statistics

Understanding Elections through Statistics PDF Author: Ole J. Forsberg
Publisher: CRC Press
ISBN: 1000205746
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 227

Get Book Here

Book Description
Elections are random events. From individuals deciding whether to vote, to people deciding for whom to vote, to election authorities deciding what to count, the outcomes of competitive democratic elections are rarely known until election day...or beyond. Understanding Elections through Statistics: Polling, Prediction, and Testing explores this random phenomenon from two points of view: predicting the election outcome using opinion polls and testing the election outcome using government-reported data. Written for those with only a brief introduction to statistics, this book takes you on a statistical journey from how polls are taken to how they can—and should—be used to estimate current popular opinion. Once an understanding of the election process is built, we turn toward testing elections for evidence of unfairness. While holding elections has become the de facto proof of government legitimacy, those electoral processes may hide a dirty little secret of the government illicitly ensuring a favorable election outcome. This book includes these features designed to make your statistical journey more enjoyable: Vignettes of elections, including maps, to provide concrete bases for the material In-chapter cues to help one avoid the heavy math—or to focus on it End-of-chapter problems designed to review and extend that which was covered in the chapter Many opportunities to turn the power of the R statistical environment to the enclosed election data files, as well as to those you find interesting From these features, it is clear the audience for this book is quite diverse. This text provides mathematics for those interested in mathematics, but also offers detours for those who just want a good read and a deeper understanding of elections. Author Ole J. Forsberg holds PhDs in both political science and statistics. He currently teaches mathematics and statistics in the Department of Mathematics at Knox College in Galesburg, IL.

Understanding Elections through Statistics

Understanding Elections through Statistics PDF Author: Ole J. Forsberg
Publisher: CRC Press
ISBN: 104013064X
Category : Mathematics
Languages : en
Pages : 364

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Book Description
Elections are random events. From individuals deciding whether to vote, to individuals deciding who to vote for, to election authorities deciding what to count, the outcomes of competitive democratic elections are rarely known until election day... or beyond. Understanding Elections through Statistics explores this random phenomenon from three primary points of view: predicting the election outcome using opinion polls, testing the election outcome using government-reported data, and exploring election data to better understand the people. Written for those with only a brief introduction to statistics, this book takes you on a statistical journey from how polls are taken to how they can—and should—be used to estimate current popular opinion. Once an understanding of the election process is built, we turn toward testing elections for evidence of unfairness. While holding elections has become the de facto proof of government legitimacy, those electoral processes may hide the dirty little secret of the government, illicitly ensuring a favorable election outcome. This book includes these features designed to make your statistical journey more enjoyable: Vignettes of elections, including maps, starting each chapter to motivate the material In-chapter cues to help one avoid the heavy math—or to focus on it End-of-chapter problems designed to review and extend what was covered in the chapter Many opportunities to turn the power of the R Statistical Environment to the enclosed election data files, as well as to those you find interesting The second edition improves upon this and includes: A rewrite of several chapters to make the underlying concepts more clear A chapter dedicated to confidence intervals, what they mean, and what they do not Additional experiments to help you better understand the statistics of elections A new introduction to polling, its terms, its processes, and its ethics From these features, it is clear that the audience for this book is quite diverse. It provides the statistics and mathematics for those interested in statistics and mathematics, but it also provides detours for those who just want a good read and a deeper understanding of elections.

Predicting Presidential Elections and Other Things, Second Edition

Predicting Presidential Elections and Other Things, Second Edition PDF Author: Ray Fair
Publisher: Stanford University Press
ISBN: 0804778027
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 234

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Book Description
"It's the economy, stupid," as Democratic strategist James Carville would say. After many years of study, Ray C. Fair has found that the state of the economy has a dominant influence on national elections. Just in time for the 2012 presidential election, this new edition of his classic text, Predicting Presidential Elections and Other Things, provides us with a look into the likely future of our nation's political landscape—but Fair doesn't stop there. Fair puts other national issues under the microscope as well—including congressional elections, Federal Reserve behavior, and inflation. In addition he covers topics well beyond today's headlines, as the book takes on questions of more direct, personal interest such as wine quality, predicting football games, and aging effects in baseball. Which of your friends is most likely to have an extramarital affair? How important is class attendance for academic performance in college? How fast can you expect to run a race or perform some physical task at age 55, given your time at age 30? Read Predicting Presidential Elections and Other Things and find out! As Fair works his way through an incredibly broad range of questions and topics, he teaches and delights. The discussion that underlies each chapter topic moves from formulating theories about real world phenomena to lessons on how to analyze data, test theories, and make predictions. At the end of this book, readers will walk away with more than mere predictions. They will have learned a new approach to thinking about many age-old concerns in public and private life, and will have a myriad of fun facts to share.

Public Funding of Presidential Elections

Public Funding of Presidential Elections PDF Author: United States. Federal Election Commission
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Campaign funds
Languages : en
Pages : 16

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Book Description


Super PACs

Super PACs PDF Author: Louise I. Gerdes
Publisher: Greenhaven Publishing LLC
ISBN: 0737768649
Category : Young Adult Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 113

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Book Description
The passage of Citizens United by the Supreme Court in 2010 sparked a renewed debate about campaign spending by large political action committees, or Super PACs. Its ruling said that it is okay for corporations and labor unions to spend as much as they want in advertising and other methods to convince people to vote for or against a candidate. This book provides a wide range of opinions on the issue. Includes primary and secondary sources from a variety of perspectives; eyewitnesses, scientific journals, government officials, and many others.

Understanding Political Science Statistics

Understanding Political Science Statistics PDF Author: Peter Galderisi
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1136819509
Category : Mathematics
Languages : en
Pages : 364

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Book Description
In politics, you begin by asking theoretically interesting questions. Sometimes statistics can help answer those questions. When it comes to applied statistics, students shouldn’t just learn a vast array of formula—they need to learn the basic concepts of statistics as solutions to particular problems. Peter Galderisi demonstrates that statistics are a summary of how to answer the problem: learn the math but only after learning the concepts and methodological considerations that give it context. With this as a starting point, Understanding Political Science Statistics asks students to consider how to address a research problem conceptually before being led to the appropriate formula. Throughout, Galderisi looks at problems through a lens of "observations and expectations," which can be applied to myriad statistical techniques, both descriptive and inferential. This approach links the answers researchers get from their individual data analysis to the research designs and questions from which these analyses are derived. By emphasizing the underlying logic of statistical analysis for greater understanding and drawing on applications and examples from political science (including law), the book illustrates how students can apply statistical concepts and techniques in their own research, in future coursework, and simply as an informed consumer of numbers in public discourse. The following features help students master the material: Legal and Methodological sidebars highlight key concepts and provide applied examples on law, politics, and methodology; End-of-chapter exercises allow students to test their mastery of the basic concepts and techniques along the way; A Sample Solutions Guide provides worked-out answers for odd-numbered exercises, with all answers available in the Instructor’s Manual; Key Terms are helpfully called out in both Marginal Definitions and a Glossary; A Companion Website (www.routledge.com/cw/galderisi) with further resources for both students and instructors; A diverse array of data sets include subsets of the ANES and Eurobarometer surveys; CCES; US Congressional district data; and a cross-national dataset with political, economic, and demographic variables; and Companion guides to SPSS and Stata walk students through the procedures for analysis and provide exercises that go hand-in-hand with online data sets.

The Mathematics of Elections and Voting

The Mathematics of Elections and Voting PDF Author: W.D. Wallis
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 3319098101
Category : Mathematics
Languages : en
Pages : 103

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Book Description
This title takes an in-depth look at the mathematics in the context of voting and electoral systems, with focus on simple ballots, complex elections, fairness, approval voting, ties, fair and unfair voting, and manipulation techniques. The exposition opens with a sketch of the mathematics behind the various methods used in conducting elections. The reader is lead to a comprehensive picture of the theoretical background of mathematics and elections through an analysis of Condorcet’s Principle and Arrow’s Theorem of conditions in electoral fairness. Further detailed discussion of various related topics include: methods of manipulating the outcome of an election, amendments, and voting on small committees. In recent years, electoral theory has been introduced into lower-level mathematics courses, as a way to illustrate the role of mathematics in our everyday life. Few books have studied voting and elections from a more formal mathematical viewpoint. This text will be useful to those who teach lower level courses or special topics courses and aims to inspire students to understand the more advanced mathematics of the topic. The exercises in this text are ideal for upper undergraduate and early graduate students, as well as those with a keen interest in the mathematics behind voting and elections.

Securing the Vote

Securing the Vote PDF Author: National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 030947647X
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 181

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Book Description
During the 2016 presidential election, America's election infrastructure was targeted by actors sponsored by the Russian government. Securing the Vote: Protecting American Democracy examines the challenges arising out of the 2016 federal election, assesses current technology and standards for voting, and recommends steps that the federal government, state and local governments, election administrators, and vendors of voting technology should take to improve the security of election infrastructure. In doing so, the report provides a vision of voting that is more secure, accessible, reliable, and verifiable.

The Oxford Handbook of American Elections and Political Behavior

The Oxford Handbook of American Elections and Political Behavior PDF Author: Jan E. Leighley
Publisher: Oxford University Press (UK)
ISBN: 0199604517
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 796

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Book Description
The Oxford Handbooks of American Politics are the essential guide to the study of American political life in the 21st Century. With engaging contributions from the major figures in the field The Oxford Handbook of American Elections and Political Behavior provides the key point of reference for anyone working in American Politics today

The Presidential Public Funding Program

The Presidential Public Funding Program PDF Author: United States. Federal Election Commission
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Campaign funds
Languages : en
Pages : 90

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Book Description