Margin Of Victory Research Articles

Changes in Mental Health Following the 2016 Presidential Election.

BackgroundThe 2016 presidential election and the controversial policy agenda of its victor have raised concerns about how the election may have impacted mental health.ObjectiveAssess how mental health changed from before to after the November 2016 election and how trends differed in states that voted for Donald Trump versus Hillary Clinton.DesignPre- versus post-election study using monthly cross-sectional survey data.ParticipantsA total of 499,201 adults surveyed in the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System from May 2016 to May 2017.ExposureResidence in a state that voted for Trump versus state that voted for Clinton and the candidate’s margin of victory in the state.Main MeasuresSelf-reported days of poor mental health in the last 30 days and depression rate.Key ResultsCompared to October 2016, the mean days of poor mental health in the last 30 days per adult rose from 3.35 to 3.85 in December 2016 in Clinton states (0.50 days difference, p = 0.005) but remained statistically unchanged in Trump states, moving from 3.94 to 3.78 days (− 0.17 difference, p = 0.308). The rises in poor mental health days in Clinton states were driven by older adults, women, and white individuals. The depression rate in Clinton states began rising in January 2017. A 10–percentage point higher margin of victory for Clinton in a state predicted 0.41 more days of poor mental health per adult in December 2016 on average (p = 0.001).ConclusionsIn states that voted for Clinton, there were 54.6 million more days of poor mental health among adults in December 2016, the month following the election, compared to October 2016. Clinicians should consider that elections could cause at least transitory increases in poor mental health and tailor patient care accordingly, especially with the 2020 election upon us. Supplementary InformationThe online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s11606-020-06328-6.

‘Running’ up the score?: the application of the anti-blowout thesis in footraces

ABSTRACT To date, scholars have side-stepped examining the applicability of the Anti-Blowout thesis in parallel sports. This essay is an attempt to test this construct in the context of endurance footraces. After a review of the central tenets of Dixon’s definition of the Anti-Blowout thesis, I will provide a sketch of what blowouts look like in footraces including a description of a secured victory and the subsequent creation of a wide margin of victory. Conclusions suggest that opportunities do exist for runners to malevolently run others into the ground, although efforts to remedy such actions are challenging due to the structure of the footrace practice.

Refining Tournament Solutions via Margin of Victory

Tournament solutions are frequently used to select winners from a set of alternatives based on pairwise comparisons between alternatives. Prior work has shown that several common tournament solutions tend to select large winner sets and therefore have low discriminative power. In this paper, we propose a general framework for refining tournament solutions. In order to distinguish between winning alternatives, and also between non-winning ones, we introduce the notion of margin of victory (MoV) for tournament solutions. MoV is a robustness measure for individual alternatives: For winners, the MoV captures the distance from dropping out of the winner set, and for non-winners, the distance from entering the set. In each case, distance is measured in terms of which pairwise comparisons would have to be reversed in order to achieve the desired outcome. For common tournament solutions, including the top cycle, the uncovered set, and the Banks set, we determine the complexity of computing the MoV and provide worst-case bounds on the MoV for both winners and non-winners. Our results can also be viewed from the perspective of bribery and manipulation.

In Focus: Margins of Victory in 2019

In Focus: Margins of Victory in 2019

Extension of the Elo rating system to margin of victory

The Elo rating system is one of the most popular methods for estimating the ability of competitors over time in sport. The standard Elo system focuses on predicting wins and losses, but there is often also interest in the margin of victory (MOV) because it reflects the magnitude of a result. There have been few theoretical investigations and comparisons of Elo-based models. In the present study, we propose four model options for an MOV Elo system: linear, joint additive, multiplicative, and logistic. Notations and guidance for tuning each model are provided. The models were applied to men’s tennis for several MOV choices. The results showed that all MOV approaches using within-set statistics improved the predictive performance compared with the standard Elo system, but only the joint additive model yielded unbiased ratings with stable variance in the simulation study. This general framework for MOV Elo ratings provide sports modelers with a new set of tools for building systems to rate competitors and forecast outcomes in sport.

Do Far-Right Mayors Increase the Probability of Hate Crimes? Evidence From Italy

In this paper, I investigate whether the election of far-right politicians affects the probability of hate crimes against immigrants. I exploit a unique dataset on hate crimes, and I focus on local mayors in Italy, a country where political support for extreme-right has recently soared. The high number of municipalities allows me to perform a Regression Discontinuity (RD) analysis and establish a causal relationship between the appointment of far-right politicians and hate crimes by focusing on local elections that far-right candidates won or lost with a tiny margin of victory. Results show that in municipalities where extreme-right mayors are in power, the likelihood of a hate crime occurring is significantly higher (around five percentage points). The effect of far-right mayors on hate crimes is particularly strong in the early years of their mandate. Besides, it persists when considering the most severe acts, including physical assaults. I find two mechanisms particularly relevant. First, I demonstrate that the election of a far-right mayor generates an erosion of social norms. This behavioral change does not occur only in the municipalities where the mayors are elected: using a staggered difference-in-differences approach, I prove the existence of spillover effects on hate crimes also in the surrounding municipalities, especially in areas where the extreme-right presence is recent. Second, I explore the role of the Internet, and I show that the results are driven by municipalities with higher broadband penetration.

The Small Margins Problem: How Abolishing the Electoral College Could Create a Future Election Crisis

This essay examines a potential unintended consequence of abolishing the Electoral College: the difficulty of identifying a national popular vote winner in the event of a close election. Under the Electoral College, the precise margin of victory is irrelevant in all but a handful of swing states decided by a small number of votes. The vast majority of states award all of their electoral votes to the candidate who finishes in first place, regardless of the candidate’s margin of victory. But if the United States elected the president through a nationwide popular vote, the precise vote totals in all 50 states would become crucially important. As recent elections have demonstrated, however, the quality of election administration in many states is sorely lacking. In a close presidential election, it might take several weeks for the states to produce an accurate and final vote total. California is a case in point. In 2016, California did not ascertain its official vote tabulation until mid-December, one month after election day. California’s slow vote-counting process would plunge the country into limbo in the event of a close nationwide popular vote. Recounts and litigation would likely further delay a conclusive determination of the popular vote. In such a scenario, the nation might not be able to ascertain an election winner before the January 20 inauguration date. Consequently, this essay concludes that a nationwide popular vote for president should not be adopted until Congress and the states establish uniform standards for tabulating presidential votes in a timely and accurate manner.

The Political Cost of Being Soft on Crime: Evidence from a Natural Experiment

AbstractThis study analyzes voters’ response to criminal justice policies by exploiting a natural experiment. The 2006 Italian Collective Pardon Bill, designed and promoted by the incumbent center-left (CL) coalition, unexpectedly released about one-third of the prison population, creating idiosyncratic incentives to recidivate across pardoned individuals. Municipalities where resident pardoned individuals had a higher incentive to recidivate experienced a higher recidivism rate. We show that in those municipalities voters “punished” the CL coalition in the 2008 parliamentary elections. A one standard deviation increase in the incentive to recidivate—corresponding to an increase of recidivism of 15.9%—led to a 3.06% increase in the margin of victory of the center-right (CR) coalition in the post-pardon national elections (2008) relative to the last election before the pardon (2006). We also provide evidence of newspapers being more likely to report crime news involving pardoned individuals and of voters hardening their views on the incumbent national government’s ability to control crime. Our findings indicate that voters keep politicians accountable by conditioning their vote on the observed effects of public policies.

Historical Institutions and Electoral Outcomes: The Case of India after Decolonization

There is now ample evidence that historical colonial institutions impact contemporary economic outcomes and some suggest that these links might be mediated by the influence of colonial institutions on electoral processes and outcomes. This paper examines this under-researched link in the context of India, focussing on two colonial institutions that potentially influence electoral outcomes – the type of rule, i.e. whether a territory was under direct British rule or whether it was under native rule – and the type of land tenure installed by the British. I measure electoral outcomes by three variables: voter turnout (VT), margin of victory (MV) and electoral competition (EC) and ask: Do historical colonial institutions impact contemporary electoral outcomes and if yes, in what ways? Do such impacts persist in the longer term? I focus specifically on the elections at the cusp of decolonization (1951) and those in 1970s, to assess short and longer-terms impacts. Results indicate a 4% higher VT in native ruled areas in the long run and 5% higher VT in the non-landlord areas in the short run. The latter dissipates in the longer term because of tenancy reforms. I find EC consistently higher in British and landlord areas but no robust impact on MV is noted. These results are consistent with the role played by landlords and erstwhile princes of native states after decolonization. The paper provides evidence on the potentially important mediating role of electoral outcomes in link between historical institutions and economic outcomes and suggests that research on elections should not overlook the role of historical institutions and those exploring the historical origins of economic outcomes should not overlook the role of elections.

Personal or Partisan Incumbency Advantage? Evidence from an Electoral Reform at the Local Level in Italy

Abstract We analyze the incumbency advantage using a large data set on Italian municipal elections held from 1993 to 2011. We first apply a non-parametric Sharp Regression Discontinuity Design comparing parties that barely win an election to those that barely lose, exploiting the fact that partisan incumbency status changes discontinuously at the threshold of margin of victory of zero. In order to disentangle the personal incumbency advantage from the partisan effect, we rely on a reform that introduced mayoral term limit, and exploit the exogenous change on the incumbency status of mayors keeping the partisan incumbency status constant. We find that the incumbency advantage is essentially driven by the personal effect. The results are robust to different specifications and estimation strategies with excellent balance in observable characteristics. Also, the effect of interest is larger in magnitude for municipalities located in the South of Italy compared to northern municipalities.

The prevalence and consequences of ballot truncation in ranked-choice elections

In ranked-choice elections, voters vote by indicating their preference orderings over the candidates. A ballot is truncated when the ordering is incomplete (called partial voting). Sometimes truncation is forced—voters are allowed to rank only a limited number of candidates—but sometimes it is voluntary. During the vote tabulating process, a truncated ballot is exhausted when all of the candidates it ranks have been eliminated. Ballot exhaustion and, therefore ballot truncation, is a concern in single-winner elections when the margin of victory in the final stage is less than the number of exhausted ballots. That concern motivates our study. We review evidence from actual single-winner ranked-choice elections and conclude that voluntary ballot truncation is very common. Moreover, it is difficult to explain strategically. To assess the significance of ballot truncation, we simulate ranked-choice elections with four, five and six candidates, using both spatial and random models of voter preferences. Does truncation change the probability that a Condorcet winner wins the election? Does the winner change as the extent of truncation increases? We find that even small amounts of truncation can alter election outcomes.

Toward Computing the Margin of Victory in Single Transferable Vote Elections

The single transferable vote (STV) is a system of preferential voting for multiseat elections. Each ballot cast by a voter is a (potentially partial) ranking over a set of candidates. No techniques currently exist for computing the margin of victory (MOV) in STV elections. The MOV is the smallest number of ballot manipulations (changes, additions, and deletions) required to bring about a change in the set of elected candidates. Knowing the MOV gives insight into how much time and money should be spent on auditing the election, and whether uncovered mistakes (such as ballot box losses) throw the election result into doubt—requiring a costly repeat election—or can be safely ignored. We present algorithms for computing lower and upper bounds on the MOV in STV elections. In small instances, these algorithms are able to compute exact margins.

Indonesia’s Democratic Paradox: Competitive Elections amidst Rising Illiberalism

Indonesia’s 2019 elections confirmed both the country’s status as a competitive electoral democracy and the trend of decreasing democratic quality. In this article, we investigate this seemingly paradoxical pattern by highlighting four political arenas directly associated with the elections. First, the incumbent government’s failure to secure a larger margin of victory for President Jokowi highlights the continued competitiveness of the electoral system, despite attempts to use state agencies for the president’s re-election campaign. Second, although efforts to mobilise state resources for Jokowi were largely unsuccessful, they added to an already significant illiberal shift. Third, the elections further accelerated the weakening of political parties, with the personalisation of legislative polls achieving new heights. Finally, the election campaign and results led to a level of religious polarisation in voting behaviour that was last seen in the 1950s. In analysing these themes, we argue that while the co-existence of Indonesia’s competitive elections with illiberal trends appears contradictory, the two are in fact interrelated.

Tweeting racial representation: how the congressional Black Caucus used Twitter in the 113th congress

ABSTRACT The social media and microblogging site Twitter has emerged as both a vehicle for political expression and a powerful tool for political organizing within the African American community. This paper examines the extent to which members of the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) utilize Twitter to communicate with their constituents about racial issues. An analysis of CBC members’ tweets during the 113th Congress (2013–2014) shows that the organization’s members do talk about race and occasionally use racially distinct hashtags. Moreover, statistical analyses show that the best predictors of a CBC members’ engagement with racial issues on Twitter are being a woman legislator, the size of their margin of victory in the 2012 elections, and the percentage of whites living within the boundaries of their district.

The political budget cycle in French municipal elections: unexpected nonlinear effects

Using a large dataset of French municipalities, this article examines the joint determination of the win margin of victory of incumbent mayors and the size of the political budget cycle. A system of two simultaneous equations is estimated with the three-stage least squares method. The main findings are twofold. First, the effects of the win margin on the size of the fiscal cycle are U-shaped. This means that, in a close election, the incumbent mayor tends to reduce public expenditure while, if the incumbent is either certain to win or to lose the election, expenditures tend to be increased. Second, another nonlinear effect is revealed, linking mayors’ time in office to their win margin of victory.

Over-Indebted Subnational Mexico: Does Political Polarization Affect Debt Policy Decisions?

Does polarization promote overspending and increase local deficits? Alesina and Tabellini (1990) suggests that more conflict between political parties encourages the opposition to over spend causing inefficient levels of public debt. According to cross national OECD data analyst find that high-level of political conflict result in surging fiscal deficits. The larger the ideological difference, the higher the likelihood of not being reelected. Thus, the incumbent will have higher incentive to spend in order to meet campaign promises. These promises often exceed current expenditures and therefore lead to public officials to access the debt market, ultimately raising the total amount of debt spending. Empirical studies to evaluate this inefficiency are typically done at the state level or cross national, but few have evaluated sub-sovereign debt issuance (Alt and Lassen 2006; Alesina1989; Alt 1985; Drazen and Eslava 2010). This research evaluates Alesina and Tabellini’s polarization theory within the newly democratizing Mexico. By using data from 2000-2014, the study first uses Dalton (2008) measure of polarization, based on voter perceptions of party positions in the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems (CSES), and secondly as the margin of victory in a panel data set with public finance indicators (percentage of total expenditures gathered by Mexico’s National Geography and Statistics Institute (INEGI) and type of debt issuance presented by Mexico’s National Treasury office (Secretaria de Hacienda y Credito Publico –SHCP). Next the study evaluates not only when in the electoral political cycles (Hibbs 1977, 1987 and Cox and McCubbins 2001) influence deficit spending, but also which type of debt does (public bond bank, commercial banks, trusts funds of the bond market increases that debt). The tentative results show that municipal debt increases in non-electoral years, i.e. the year before and after the next election, which is congruent with other research on Mexico (Benton and Smith 2017); but also that debt issuance increases for commercial bank loans and the public bond bank in those years, suggesting the easier the accessibility of the type of debt will have more probability to be effected by these ideologically difference in the electoral cycle.

Surviving Political Scandals: Why Some Transgressions End Political Careers and Others Do Not

ObjectiveIn this article, we examine several explanations for why some politicians survive political scandals and others do not. These explanations include the nature and magnitude of the scandal, the political environment, and how the politician responds to the scandal.MethodsTo identify scandals, we use the Lexis‐Nexis database of Associated Press State and Local Wire (APSLW) articles between January 1, 2011 and December 31, 2014 to examine political scandals involving politicians in 14 states. Using data obtained from relevant news articles, we estimate multivariate models in order to predict the probability of surviving a political scandal, as well as the electoral margin of victory for those who do survive.FindingsWe find that men, those in safe seats, those in favorable political environments, and those with support of their spouses are more likely to survive a political scandal. However, early‐breaking scandals, those that are more severe, those that require an apology or aggressive defense, and those that are sexual in nature decrease the probability of survival.ConclusionWhile scandals put politicians at risk, there are factors that insulate politicians from the adverse effects of their transgressions. These findings offer insights into why some politiciansacross levels of governmentseem somewhat immune to scandals, while others have their careers abruptly ended because of them.

Only unbalanced games are affected by technical and tactical aspects able to discriminate winning and losing performance in women’s water polo Olympic Games

This study aimed to analyze technical and tactical parameters characterizing the women's water polo Olympic Games (Rio, Brazil, 2016) to discriminate winning and losing performance profile in general and according to close and unbalanced games with different margin of victory (i.e., ≤ or > of 3, 4, and 5 goals of difference between teams). Twenty-four games were analysed through the frequency of occurrence of the following technical and tactical indicators: goals scored (GS), goals scored and shots without goals inside (AsG, AsWG) and outside (5-mG, 5-mWG) the 5-m area, goals scored (5-mFG) and shots without goals (5-FWG) after a 5-m fouls, penalties scored (PS) and failed (PWG), turnovers (TO), assists (AS), blocked shots (BS), and counterattack goals (CG). Mann–Whitney U test was applied to compare the values of winning and losing teams for each indicator. Regardless of GS, no difference between teams emerged in close games. Conversely, for unbalanced games, differences between teams emerged for AS (p ≤ 0.001; effect size, ES ≥ 0.5) in each margin of victory, and for AsWG and 5-mWG (p ≤ 0.05; ES ≥ 0.3) in > 5 goals of margin of victory. The outcomes of women’s water polo Olympic close and unbalanced games are determined by not specific playing events, and few technical and tactical factors (such as AS), respectively. Therefore, top-level women’s water polo coaches and physical trainers can plan a sound training session according to specific game data reported for the Olympic Games contest.

Political Contributions and Public Procurement: Evidence from Lithuania

Abstract This paper studies whether firms trade political contributions for public procurement contracts. Combining data on Lithuanian government tenders, corporate donors, and firm characteristics, I examine how a ban on corporate contributions affects the awarding of procurement contracts to companies that donated in the past. Consistent with political favoritism, donors’ probability of winning falls by five percentage points as compared to that of nondonor firms after the ban. Evidence on bidding and victory margins suggests that corporate donors may receive auction-relevant information affecting procurement outcomes in their favor.

Voter turnout and government's legitimate mandate

The paper studies a group-mobilization model of costly voting in which citizens care about the legitimate mandate of the government formed by the winning group. This, as a function of the electorate's voting behavior, depends on both the margin of victory and the total turnout rate. Citizens prefer a high mandate when their own group forms the government but a low one if the government is formed by an opposing group. As such, the eventual losing group faces a trade-off: a higher participation from its members decreases the margin of victory but increases the total turnout. In equilibrium, a second fundamental trade-off arises, which overturns the supposed positive relationship between turnout and mandate: as the total turnout becomes more important for the government's mandate, the first decreases but the second strengthens. The key mechanism at play is a shift in the relative participation of the two groups, which favors the majority and raises its margin of victory, thus yielding a bandwagon effect. The implications for the evolution of turnout and the occurrence of election boycotts are discussed.