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The price of a vote: Diseconomy in proportional elections.

ABSTRACT: The increasing cost of electoral campaigns raises the need for effective campaign planning and a precise understanding of the return of such investment. Interestingly, despite the strong impact of elections on our daily lives, how this investment is translated into votes is still unknown. By performing data analysis and modeling, we show that top candidates spend more money per vote than the less successful and poorer candidates, a relation that discloses a diseconomy of scale. We demonstrate that such electoral diseconomy arises from the competition between candidates due to inefficient campaign expenditure. Our approach succeeds in two important tests. First, it reveals that the statistical pattern in the vote distribution of candidates can be explained in terms of the independently conceived, but similarly skewed distribution of money campaign. Second, using a heuristic argument, we are able to explain the observed turnout percentage for a given election of approximately 63% in average. This result is in good agreement with the average turnout rate obtained from real data. Due to its generality, we expect that our approach can be applied to a wide range of problems concerning the adoption process in marketing campaigns.

SUBMITTER: Melo HPM

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6104946 | biostudies-literature |

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Bayesian inference on proportional elections.

Project description:Polls for majoritarian voting systems usually show estimates of the percentage of votes for each candidate. However, proportional vote systems do not necessarily guarantee the candidate with the most percentage of votes will be elected. Thus, traditional methods used in majoritarian elections cannot be applied on proportional elections. In this context, the purpose of this paper was to perform a Bayesian inference on proportional elections considering the Brazilian system of seats distribution. More specifically, a methodology to answer the probability that a given party will have representation on the chamber of deputies was developed. Inferences were made on a Bayesian scenario using the Monte Carlo simulation technique, and the developed methodology was applied on data from the Brazilian elections for Members of the Legislative Assembly and Federal Chamber of Deputies in 2010. A performance rate was also presented to evaluate the efficiency of the methodology. Calculations and simulations were carried out using the free R statistical software.

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| S-EPMC8847986 | biostudies-literature

Gains in health insurance coverage explain variation in Democratic vote share in the 2008-2016 presidential elections.

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| S-EPMC6449023 | biostudies-literature

Contextual priming: where people vote affects how they vote.

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The Asian American Vote in 2020: Indicators of Turnout and Vote Choice.

Project description:What were the indicators of voter turnout and presidential vote choice among Asian Americans in 2020? We argue that 2020 was a unique year in which race was salient for Asian Americans due to the rise of anti-Asian attitudes attributed to the COVID-19 pandemic and the opportunity to elect a vice presidential candidate of Asian descent. Because of this, racial considerations played a unique role that informed Asian American political participation and attitudes in this election. Using data from the 2020 Collaborative Multiracial Post-Election Survey, we identify the individual-level factors associated with turnout and presidential vote choice among Asian Americans. We find that stronger perceptions of racial discrimination were related to a higher likelihood of turnout and voting in support of the Democratic Party, especially among Asian immigrants relative to the native-born. This study offers new insight for when we can expect racial considerations to inform the politics of Asian Americans, who are the fastest growing racial group in the United States and therefore an increasingly important bloc of the electorate.Supplementary informationThe online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s11109-022-09844-9.

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Universal vote-by-mail has no impact on partisan turnout or vote share.

Project description:In response to coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), many scholars and policy makers are urging the United States to expand voting-by-mail programs to safeguard the electoral process. What are the effects of vote-by-mail? In this paper, we provide a comprehensive design-based analysis of the effect of universal vote-by-mail-a policy under which every voter is mailed a ballot in advance of the election-on electoral outcomes. We collect data from 1996 to 2018 on all three US states that implemented universal vote-by-mail in a staggered fashion across counties, allowing us to use a difference-in-differences design at the county level to estimate causal effects. We find that 1) universal vote-by-mail does not appear to affect either party's share of turnout, 2) universal vote-by-mail does not appear to increase either party's vote share, and 3) universal vote-by-mail modestly increases overall average turnout rates, in line with previous estimates. All three conclusions support the conventional wisdom of election administration experts and contradict many popular claims in the media.

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Genome majority vote improves gene predictions.

Project description:Recent studies have noted extensive inconsistencies in gene start sites among orthologous genes in related microbial genomes. Here we provide the first documented evidence that imposing gene start consistency improves the accuracy of gene start-site prediction. We applied an algorithm using a genome majority vote (GMV) scheme to increase the consistency of gene starts among orthologs. We used a set of validated Escherichia coli genes as a standard to quantify accuracy. Results showed that the GMV algorithm can correct hundreds of gene prediction errors in sets of five or ten genomes while introducing few errors. Using a conservative calculation, we project that GMV would resolve many inconsistencies and errors in publicly available microbial gene maps. Our simple and logical solution provides a notable advance toward accurate gene maps.

| S-EPMC3219611 | biostudies-literature

Stylized Facts in Brazilian Vote Distributions.

Project description:Elections, specially in countries such as Brazil, with an electorate of the order of 100 million people, yield large-scale data-sets embodying valuable information on the dynamics through which individuals influence each other and make choices. In this work we perform an extensive analysis of data sets available for Brazilian proportional elections of legislators and city councilors throughout the period 1970-2014, which embraces two distinct political regimes: a military regime followed by a democratic one. We perform a comparative analysis of elections for legislative positions, in different states and years, through the distribution p(v) of the number of candidates receiving v votes. We show the impact of the different political regimes on the vote distributions. Although p(v) has a common shape, with a scaling behavior, quantitative details change over time and from one electorate to another. In order to interpret the observed features, we propose a multi-species model consisting in a system of nonlinear differential equations, with values of the parameters that reflect the heterogeneity of candidates. In its simplest setting, the model can not explain the cutoff, formed by the most voted candidates, whose success is determined mainly by their peculiar, intrinsic characteristics, such as previous publicity. However, the modeling allows to interpret the scaling of p(v), yielding a predictor of the degree of feedback in the interactions of the electorate. Knowledge of the feedback is relevant beyond the context of elections, since a similar interactivity may occur for other social contagion processes in the same population.

| S-EPMC4587976 | biostudies-literature

Do doctors vote?

Project description:BACKGROUND: Organizational leaders and scholars have issued calls for the medical profession to refocus its efforts on fulfilling the core tenets of professionalism. A key element of professionalism is participation in community affairs. OBJECTIVE: To measure physician voting rates as an indicator of civic participation. DESIGN: Cross-sectional survey of a subgroup of physicians from a nationally representative household survey of civilian, noninstitutionalized adult citizens. PARTICIPANTS: A total of 350,870 participants in the Current Population Survey (CPS) November Voter Supplement from 1996-2002, including 1,274 physicians and 1,886 lawyers; 414,989 participants in the CPS survey from 1976-1982, including 2,033 health professionals. MEASUREMENTS: Multivariate logistic regression models were used to compare adjusted physician voting rates in the 1996-2002 congressional and presidential elections with those of lawyers and the general population and to compare voting rates of health professionals in 1996-2002 with those in 1976-1992. RESULTS: After multivariate adjustment for characteristics known to be associated with voting rates, physicians were less likely to vote than the general population in 1998 (odds ratio 0.76; 95% confidence interval [CI] 0.59-0.99), 2000 (odds ratio 0.64; 95% CI 0.44-0.93), and 2002 (odds ratio 0.62; 95% CI 0.48-0.80) but not 1996 (odds ratio 0.83; 95% CI 0.59-1.17). Lawyers voted at higher rates than the general population and doctors in all four elections (P < .001). The pooled adjusted odds ratio for physician voting across the four elections was 0.70 (CI 0.61-0.81). No substantial changes in voting rates for health professionals were observed between 1976-1982 and 1996-2002. CONCLUSIONS: Physicians have lower adjusted voting rates than lawyers and the general population, suggesting reduced civic participation.

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Under threat by popular vote: German-speaking immigrants' affect and cognitions following the Swiss vote against mass immigration.

Project description:A popular initiative in support of regulating future immigration to Switzerland was accepted by the electorate in 2014. Assuming that the initiative acted as an exclusionary threat for current immigrants of Switzerland, we conducted an online survey among a sample of highly-skilled German-speaking immigrants ("expats"). Participants reported having experienced negative affect following the vote. Moreover, having a more left-wing orientation, living in a political constituency that had voted pro-regulation and having proportionally few Swiss friends positively predicted negative affect following the vote. Negative affect was associated with a reported negative change in one's attitudes towards Switzerland, increased considerations to leave the country, and impaired satisfaction with life. In sum, the results suggest that a powerful exclusionary threat such as a national vote may be experienced as distressful by highly-skilled immigrants currently living in the country.

| S-EPMC5391132 | biostudies-literature

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