Influence Election Outcomes Research Articles

The Effectiveness of Campaign Digital Politics in Increasing the Electability of Prospective Candidates: A Analysis General Election of President and Vice President 2019

In this digital era, political campaigns have experienced significant changes with the emergence of various social media platforms and digital technology. This phenomenon is no exception in the context of the 2019 presidential and vice-presidential general elections in Indonesia. Digital political campaigns have become an integral part of candidates' strategies in winning the hearts of voters and increasing their electability. In this analysis, we evaluate the effectiveness of digital political campaigns in increasing the electability of prospective candidates in the 2019 presidential and vice-presidential general elections. We identify the strategies and tactics used by candidates and their campaign teams in utilizing digital technology to achieve their political goals, as well as the impact digital political campaigns on public perception and the final results of the general election. Using qualitative analysis methods, we collect data from various social media platforms and apply content analysis to understand the influence of digital political campaigns. The research results show that digital political campaigns have a significant impact in increasing the electability of prospective candidates, by increasing visibility, recognition and interaction with voters through social media. In addition, we also discuss other factors that influence election outcomes, such as the participation of young voters, the potential for polarization, and the influence of dynastic politics. Thus, this analysis provides in-depth insight into the role of digital technology in contemporary politics and its implications for democracy and the general election process in Indonesia.

Critical Review of Stack Ensemble Classifier for the Prediction of Young Adults’ Voting Patterns Based on Parents’ Political Affiliations

Aim/Purpose: This review paper aims to unveil some underlying machine-learning classification algorithms used for political election predictions and how stack ensembles have been explored. Additionally, it examines the types of datasets available to researchers and presents the results they have achieved. Background: Predicting the outcomes of presidential elections has always been a significant aspect of political systems in numerous countries. Analysts and researchers examining political elections rely on existing datasets from various sources, including tweets, Facebook posts, and so forth to forecast future elections. However, these data sources often struggle to establish a direct correlation between voters and their voting patterns, primarily due to the manual nature of the voting process. Numerous factors influence election outcomes, including ethnicity, voter incentives, and campaign messages. The voting patterns of successors in regions of countries remain uncertain, and the reasons behind such patterns remain ambiguous. Methodology: The study examined a collection of articles obtained from Google Scholar, through search, focusing on the use of ensemble classifiers and machine learning classifiers and their application in predicting political elections through machine learning algorithms. Some specific keywords for the search include “ensemble classifier,” “political election prediction,” and “machine learning”, “stack ensemble”. Contribution: The study provides a broad and deep review of political election predictions through the use of machine learning algorithms and summarizes the major source of the dataset in the said analysis. Findings: Single classifiers have featured greatly in political election predictions, though ensemble classifiers have been used and have proven potent use in the said field is rather low. Recommendation for Researchers: The efficacy of stack classification algorithms can play a significant role in machine learning classification when modelled tactfully and is efficient in handling labelled datasets. however, runtime becomes a hindrance when the dataset grows larger with the increased number of base classifiers forming the stack. Future Research: There is the need to ensure a more comprehensive analysis, alternative data sources rather than depending largely on tweets, and explore ensemble machine learning classifiers in predicting political elections. Also, ensemble classification algorithms have indeed demonstrated superior performance when carefully chosen and combined.

Whose bailout is it anyway? The roles of politics in PPP bailouts of small businesses vs. banks

We address whether politics played important roles in allocating Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) bailout funds, and whether PPP allocations effectively bailed out small businesses vs. banks. Our econometric evidence suggests that politicians/other government agents at national and local levels effectively steered PPP funds toward small businesses and banks based on their locations to try to influence election outcomes. We also uncover evidence that some PPP funds were effectively allocated by lobbying efforts of certain banks. Findings are confirmed by a novel mediation analysis and numerous robustness checks. We also find banks profited from PPP through multiple channels, adding to extant findings, and suggesting that PPP may have effectively bailed out banks as well as small businesses, but through different political influences.

The Role of the Economy, Security and Party Leader Acceptance in Forecasting the 2020 General Election in Jamaica

Three econometric models were built between January and March 2020 to predict the September 3, 2020 General Election in Jamaica. These are the economics and security model (model1), the economics and security model with JLP leader acceptance (model 2), and the economics and security model with PNP leader acceptance (model 3). All three models accurately predicted a win for the Jamaica Labour Party. A Jack-knife resampling was performed for cross validation. These models show how the macro-economy, security concerns and party leader popularity influence election outcomes, with similar findings in the literature. However, there are peculiarities in the Anglophone Caribbean because the Jamaican voters respond to economic and security concerns in different ways than the voters in the global north. For example, increases in the debt to GDP ratio and the homicide rate predicted a JLP win. This work should be replicated in the Caribbean and Latin America using panel data.

Controlling International Institutions: How the US Engineered UNSC Non‐permanent Members in the Early Cold War

AbstractHow did the US shape the composition of the UN Security Council during the early Cold War period? By focusing on the election of non‐permanent members to Council seats, this paper investigates what role the US played in the nomination and election of candidate countries. In doing so, the study relies heavily on US diplomatic archives since those archival materials are rich in terms of voting preferences of UN members, negotiations between the US and its allies, and Washington's intensive lobbying for candidates. Investigating contested elections from 1946 to 1964, we find that although the US had an extensive influence on determining Council's non‐permanent members, its power to influence election outcomes dramatically weakened from the late 1950s onwards. This finding has important implications for the recent literature on the UN Security Council.

State Regulation of Election-Related Speech in the U.S.: An Overview and Comparative Analysis

The last two presidential election cycles have brought increased attention to the extent of misinformation – and outright lies – peddled by political candidates, their surrogates, and others who seek to influence election outcomes. Given the ubiquity of this speech, especially online, one might assume that there are no laws against lying in politics. It turns out that the opposite is true. Although the federal government has largely stayed out of regulating the content of election-related speech, the states have been surprisingly active in passing laws that prohibit false statements associated with elections. By our count, forty-eight states and the District of Columbia have such laws (Maine and Vermont are the exceptions). For this report, we reviewed more than 125 state statutes that regulate the content of election-related speech. These laws take one of two basic forms: statutes that directly target the content of election-related speech, and generally applicable statutes that indirectly implicate election-related speech by prohibiting intimidation or fraud associated with an election. In significant ways, these election-speech statutes deviate from longstanding theories of liability for false speech. First, the statutes cover a broader range of speech than has traditionally been subject to government restriction: the statutes cover everything from merely derogatory statements about candidates (defamation requires false statements that create a degree of moral opprobrium) to false information about ballot measures, voting procedures, and incumbency. Second, a substantial number of the statutes impose liability regardless of whether the speaker knew the information was false or acted negligently. To aid in the analysis and comparison of the statutes, we created a multi-level taxonomy of the types of speech the statutes target and cataloged which states have statutes that fall within each category. In the appendix, we provide a summary for each state that outlines the relevant statutory provisions and provides a brief description of the restrictions the statutes impose as well as the types of speakers to which they apply. For purposes of this report, we have not made any assessment as to whether the statutes are constitutional. Because they target speech based on its content, we expect that many of the statutes could be subject to significant First Amendment challenges. Indeed, the handful of statutes that have already faced a court challenge did not fare well. We plan to assess their constitutionality in a later phase of this project. Political speech has long been viewed as residing at the core of the First Amendment’s protections for speech. Yet it has become increasingly clear that lies and other forms of misinformation associated with elections are corrosive to democracy. Regardless of whether individual statutes survive First Amendment scrutiny, it is useful to catalog the breadth and depth of state efforts to deal with lies, misinformation, intimidation, and fraud in elections. The surprising number of statutes already on the books clearly demonstrate that state legislatures see a problem that needs to be addressed. Moreover, apart from government efforts to impose civil and criminal liability for election-related speech, these statutes (and the taxonomy we describe in this report) can be useful to social media platforms and other intermediaries that facilitate election-related speech. If nothing else, the statutes provide a partial roadmap for identifying the types of speech – and election harms – that may warrant intervention.

Do party leadership contests forecast British general elections?

When assessing election forecasts, two important criteria emerge: their accuracy (precision) and lead time (distance to event). Curiously, in both 2010 and 2015 the most accurate forecasts came from models having the longest lead time—albeit at most 12 months. Can we increase the lead time further, supposing we tolerate a small decrease in accuracy? Here, we develop a model with a lead time of more than 3 years. Our Party Leadership Model relies on the votes of MPs when selecting their party leader. We assess the forecasting quality of our model with both leave-one-out cross-validation and a before-the-fact forecast of the 2019 general election. Compared to both simple forecasting methods and other scientific forecasts, our model emerges as a leading contender. This result suggests that election forecasting may benefit from developing models with longer lead times, and that party leaders may influence election outcomes more than is usually thought.

The Role of the Economy, Security and Party Leader Acceptance in Forecasting the 2020 General Election in Jamaica

Three econometric models were built to predict the 2020 General Election in Jamaica. These are the economics and security model (model1), the economics and security model with JLP leader acceptance (model 2), and the economics and security model with PNP leader acceptance (model 3). All three models accurately predicted a win for the Jamaica Labour Party. These models show how the macro-economy, security concerns and party leader popularity influence election outcome, with similar findings in the literature. However, there are peculiarities in Latin America and the Caribbean because the Jamaican voters respond to economic and security concerns in different ways than the voters in the global north. For e.g. increases in the debt to GDP ratio and the homicide rate predicted a JLP win. We therefore need to understand how voter microlevel characteristics, meso-level patterns of relationships and macro-level institutions influence election outcomes within and across Latin America and the Caribbean.

Public opinion toward non-party campaign spending in the UK and Canada

ABSTRACT There has been no shortage of literature that has focused on the role of money in politics. While the majority has focused squarely on the fundraising activities and spending preferences of parties and candidates, far less has paid attention to the spending habits of corporations, unions and interests that often register as non-parties. Yet these actors have gained prominence across general elections and referendum campaigns in the past decade owing to the increase in funds spent to influence election outcomes. Little is known about what the public thinks about the participation of these actors in campaigns. Yet public opinion toward non-party campaign spending is important to the degree that it effects perceptions of electoral integrity and might compel policy change. This paper uses new survey data collected from Canada and the UK to answer questions about how citizens perceive non-party campaign spending and what informs attitudes toward non-parties. We find that the public in both countries have mixed views on the participation of non-parties, but that there is some evidence that core concerns about electoral interiority and perceptions toward the role of money in politics drives opinion.

Campaigns influence election outcomes less than you think.

Campaigns have small effects but are built to win close races

The transfers game: A comparative analysis of the mechanical effect of lower preference votes in STV systems

Debates about electoral reform revolve around giving voters more choice. Consequently, reformers often favor adopting the single transferable vote, a candidate-based system that allows voters to rank order candidates. Nonetheless, studies about whether lower preferences (transfers) influence STV election outcomes remain scant. To address this gap, our comparative multivariate approach tests transfers’ impact on election results in Ireland, Malta, Northern Ireland, and Scotland. We find that, on average, transfers are pivotal in the election of about one in 10 elected candidates. Hence, their impact is the exception rather than the norm. We show that when lower preferences are decisive at the candidate level, they benefit smaller and moderate parties and non-incumbents and, in Malta and Ireland, female candidates. Our results have implications for understanding the extent to which multiple preferences influence election outcomes and for debates on electoral reform.

The effect of political neuromarketing 2.0 on election outcomes

Purpose The purpose of this paper is the better understanding of the increasing relation between big data 2.0 and neuromarketing, particularly to influence election outcomes, along with a special aim to discuss some raised doubts about Trump’s presidential campaign 2016 and its ability to hijack American political consumers’ minds, and to direct their votes. Design/methodology/approach This paper combines deductive/inductive methodology to define the term of political neuromarketing 2.0 through a brief literature review of related concepts of big data 2.0, virtual identity and neuromarketing. It then applies a single qualitative case study by presenting the history and causes of online voter microtargeting in the USA, and analyzing the political neuromarketing 2.0 mechanisms adopted by Trump’s political campaign team in the 2016 presidential election. Findings Based on Trump’s political marketing mechanisms analysis, the paper believes that big data 2.0 and neuromarketing techniques played an unusual role in reading political consumers’ minds and helping the controversial candidate to meet one of the most unexpected victories in the presidential elections. Nevertheless, this paper argues that the ethics of using political neuromarketing 2.0 to sell candidates and its negative impacts on the quality of democracy are and will continue to be a subject of ongoing debates. Originality/value The marriage of big data 2.0 and political neuromarketing is a new interdisciplinary field of inquiry. This paper provides a useful introduction and further explanations for why and how Trump’s campaign defied initial loss predictions and attained victory during this election.

How money drives US congressional elections: Linear models of money and outcomes

This paper analyzes whether money influences election outcomes. Using a new and more comprehensive dataset built from government sources, the paper shows that the relations between money and votes cast for major parties in elections for the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives from 1980 to 2018 are well approximated by straight lines. It then considers possible challenges to this “linear model” of money and elections on statistical grounds, resting on possible endogeneity arising from reciprocal causation between, for example, popularity and votes. The paper develops a spatial Bayesian latent instrumental variable model to tackle this much discussed problem. It checks its results by studying relations between changes in gambling odds and contributions in key elections. Both approaches suggest that reciprocal causation may happen to some degree, but that money’s independent influence on elections remains powerful.

Public R&D under different electoral rules: evidence from OECD countries

Despite research on R&D and innovation policies, the effect of constitutional rules in this area has not received adequate attention yet. The paper contributes to filling this research gap by proposing that electoral systems affect governments’ decisions regarding R&D spending. It is expected that investment in R&D is closer to a bounded public good than to transfer payment. Therefore, governments in countries with majoritarian electoral rules should be willing to use this instrument to influence election outcomes. Both the amount invested and structure of funding is expected to depend on whether a government is elected via proportional or majoritarian rules. The analysis covers 25 OECD countries between 1981 and 2014, and relies on panel data analysis. The findings suggest that governments elected under majoritarian rules project higher government budget appropriations or outlays for research and development (GBAORD) than governments elected under proportional rules. Furthermore, GBAORD is more fragmented thematically in countries with proportional electoral rules.

Enfranchising Your Own? Experimental Evidence on Bureaucrat Diversity and Election Bias in India

This paper investigates the effects of polling station administrator diversity on elections in India, using a natural experiment: the random assignment of government officials to teams managing stations on election day, together with surveys conducted with voters and election officers. I demonstrate that changes in the religious and caste composition of officer teams impact voting at the polling station level, causing shifts in coalition vote shares large enough to influence election outcomes. Effects are strongest when officers have greater discretion over the voting process. I also provide evidence suggesting own-group favoritism by election personnel as one relevant mechanism. (JEL C93, D72, D73, J15, O17, Z12)

Policy Salience and Election Outcomes in Contemporary American Presidential Elections (1972‐2000)

This article examines the influence of policy salience on election outcomes using aggregate U.S. presidential election data and the American National Election Studies poll data from 1972 to 2000. It finds that salience influences election outcomes consistent with the Schattschneider‐Lowi thesis that policy determines politics. While salience levels are typically low, relatively higher salience yields more popular votes for Republicans than Democrats. Consequently, Republicans typically win by higher margins and lose by smaller margins compared to Democrats. Moreover, an incumbent is likely to be reelected if his party's salience levels remain higher than the challenger's. Finally, the policy salience thesis provides useful clues in the quest for a unified voting theory. It suggests that voters rely on rationality and self‐interest to obtain answers to two pertinent questions, whose answers determine how they vote: (1) what is the most important problem; and (2) who can address it? These questions also undergird other voting theories.Related Articles Bernick, M. Ethan, and Nathan Myers. 2012. “.” Politics & Policy 40 (): 131‐159. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1747-1346.2011.00340.x/abstract Heidbreder, Bianne. 2012. “.” Politics & Policy 40 (): 296‐319. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1747-1346.2012.00345.x/abstract Khodr, Hiba, and Isabella Ruble. 2013. “.” Politics & Policy 41 (): 656‐689. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/polp.12033/pdf

How Money Drives US Congressional Elections

This paper analyzes whether money influences election outcomes. Using a new and more comprehensive dataset built from government sources, the paper begins by showing that the relations between money and major party votes in all elections for the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives from 1980 to 2014 are well approximated by straight lines. It then considers possible challenges to this “linear model” of money and elections on statistical grounds, resting on possible endogeneity arising from reciprocal causation between, for example, popularity and votes. Extending the analysis of latent instrumental variables pioneered by Peter Ebbes and recently analyzed by Irene Hueter, the paper tackles this much discussed problem by developing a spatial Bayesian latent instrumental variable model. Taking a leaf from discussions of event analysis in economics and finance, the paper also examines the light thrown on the model’s usefulness by studying changes in the gambling odds on a Republican takeover of the House in 1994. Both approaches suggest that reciprocal causation may happen to some degree, but that money’s independent influence on elections remains powerful. A concluding section of the paper considers the alleged “centerist” leanings of American large corporations by comparison with members of the Forbes 400 and evidence that the effect of money in House elections has dropped slightly over time, though it remains extremely strong.

How Do Government Employees Influence Election Outcomes

The number of Americans employed by the government has grown over the years both in absolute numbers and as a proportion of the population. Assuming that these people are rational voters, they have a strong incentive to vote for candidates who seem most committed to maintaining the status quo or increasing the size and scope of government. However, this may not be the preference of the electorate as a whole, at least in some elections. This reality sets up a situation where bureaucrats could vote in significantly different patterns than the nonbureaucrat population. Under some conditions, it is possible that government employees are the marginal difference in an election outcome. This article explores how much influence government employees exert on election outcomes. In short, we seek to demonstrate how jurisdictions with a disproportionate share of government employees vote differently than other jurisdictions. We also explore what implications that may have on campaign resource allocation.

Capital Preferences: International Capital and Government Partisanship

Many argue that government partisanship influences the size of investment flows into stocks and bonds. But existing literature tells us little about how international capital flows influence election outcomes. I argue that passive investment into stocks, bonds, and other debt instruments—in other words, portfolio investments—increases political contributions to right-wing parties. This investment generates resources for domestic capitalists. These owners of capital then channel these resources into political contributions to right-wing parties and enhance those parties' electoral position. Thus, passive investment bolsters the electoral chances of right-wing governments. I illustrate this process with a formal model of special interest politics in which lobbies operate under budget constraint. Using a new data set on political contributions and statistical analyses for a sample of states from 1980–2009, I find support for my general argument.

Candidate Voice Pitch Influences Election Outcomes

A growing literature in psychology shows that human voice pitch—perceived “highness” or “lowness” as determined by the physiology of the throat—influences how speakers are perceived. This leads to the prediction that candidate voice pitch influences voters. Here this question is addressed with two studies. The first is an experiment conducted with a large national sample of U.S. adults. The results show that men and women prefer to vote for male and female candidates with lower pitched voices. The second study examines the outcomes of the 2012 U.S. House elections. When facing male opponents, candidates with lower voices won a larger vote share. However, when facing female opponents, candidates with higher voices were more successful and particularly so in the case of male candidates. In synthesizing research on the human voice and voter behavior and triangulating evidence from a controlled experiment and a large observational study of actual elections, this article illustrates that candidate voice pitch influences election outcomes.