Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2007. / Includes bibliographical references. Also available online.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2004. / Supervisor: Daron Shaw. Vita. Includes bibliographical references. Also available from UMI.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2007. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

With the rise of social media, people have gained a platform to express opinions and discuss current subjects with others. This thesis investigates whether a simple sentiment analysis — determining how positive a tweet about a given party is — can be used to predict the results of the Swedish general election and compares the results to betting odds and opinion polls. The results show that while the idea is an interesting one, and sometimes the data can point in the right direction, it is by far a reliable source to predict election outcomes.

Provincial electoral districts were first created in British Columbia in I869. At that time the criteria used to determine the ridings on the mainland were the existing mining division boundaries and on Vancouver Island the land district boundaries. Since 1869 many different sets of constituency boundaries have been used in the province. At all times the government has attempted to give the more settled areas the greatest number of electoral seats and yet provide each region of the province with legislative representation. Since electoral ridings were initiated, however, there has not been a stated policy by which the legislature has determined new constituency boundaries. In certain instances areal size has been the determining factor in deliniation, whereas in other cases electoral numbers were used. In 1965 the ratio of voting numbers between the largest constituency and the smallest was in excess of twenty-five votes to one. It was therefore believed that a major revision of British Columbia's electoral boundaries was due. There are three major methods by which new political boundaries may be determined; these being representation by population, by area, and by community of interest. Each method has certain qualities and liabilities. Representation by population is considered the best method of boundary delineation because the votes of all persons are then of equal weight. Since British Columbia contains such an uneven population distribution many constituencies created by employing this principle would be too large in area to be served effectively by one representative. As well, many urban constituencies would be extremely small. Therefore the thesis concluded that this method of boundary determination was not suitable for British Columbia. Representation by area was not considered to be practical for many ridings would contain only a few hundred voters while others over one hundred thousand. Therefore, representation by community of interest appeared to be the best method of determining legislative constituency boundaries. In this system the under-populated areas of the province would have few electoral representatives. Using this method of deliniation each riding would contain persons affected by similar problems and sharing common interests. Community of Interest regions were determined by isolating all territory which is primarily dependent upon a central settlement. Throughout British Columbia large settlements exist which serve the economic and social needs of the surrounding urban and rural population. The thesis recommended I that such regions would make good provincial constituencies since the rural and urban areas would have equal interest in both local affairs and development. To determine the sphere of influence surrounding each large settlement an examination of services provided by various sized communities was undertaken in order to determine which services were offered only by the larger nucleations. As this method of analysis was not applicable in the Lower Mainland area a study of shopping patterns and community activities was used as a basis for boundary determination. Each of these areas of common interest became the basis for the recommended urban constituencies. As a potential political instrument the value of a new set of electoral boundaries lies in the result which its employment would achieve. Using the 1963 provincial election statistics in the proposed constituencies, the results would have changed the political party representation in the legislature very little. Therefore more equable districts could be adopted without a shift in political party strength. / Arts, Faculty of / Geography, Department of / Graduate

Dissertation (LLM)--University of Pretoria, 2013 / Centre for Human Rights / LLM / Unrestricted

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Diploma thesis "Aplication of Second order election theory on European election in Visegrad states" examines a theory of second-order election and aplicates it on European elections in the Visegrad states. Since this theory was build on election results in founding states of the EU and this theory was many times proved in western Europe, the main goal is to find out whether the election results of the Visegrad states concur with the theory of second- order election or not. In that case goal of this thesis will be to find out where and why there is differences. The thesis is divided into three parts. First theoretical part deals with all theories which were tried to explain different outcomes from different types of elections. Second part introduces our hypotheses and methodology by which we examine these hypotheses. Third part analyses the results of elections from selected countries. First four chapters of the third part deal with selected countries separately. Fifth chapter compares our results from the Visegrad states among them and then it compares these results with results from the countries of EU-15.

In a participatory democracy where every vote counts, voters expect that every vote will be counted. The voting machine is the instrument with which the voting public records its intent and appoints its representatives. In order for the democratic process to function, voting machines must properly function. This thesis examines voter error across Florida's 67 counties in the 2002 and 2006 gubernatorial elections in order to analyze and explain the pattern in voter error as represented by undervotes and overvotes across counties of various demographic and socio-economic characteristics, using different electronic voting systems in the 2002 and 2006 gubernatorial elections. The debate over the accuracy and accountability of touchscreen technology has been prominent for the last several election cycles and in the state of Florida resulted in the banning of use of these technologies. Yet, many counties in the United States still use touchscreen technology. Are touchscreen systems better equipped for reducing voter error? Correlation and Mean comparison analysis suggest that counties that primarily used touchscreen technology on Election Day had lower voter error rates than counties using optical scan technology in the 2006 election. Touchscreen technology was found to eliminate overvoting. Voter turnout was not found to have an effect on voter error rates. Voter error rates were found to be higher in the 2006 election than in the 2002 election for optical scan ballots but not for touchscreen systems. The question of enfranchisement is central to the democratic debate. If every vote counts, then should not every vote be accurately counted? Analysis has shown that the factors with the strongest and most consistent correlation with voter error rates for the 2004 and 2006 gubernatorial elections are educational level, median household income, county population size, and county population density for counties using optical scan systems. For counties using touchscreen machines the only significant correlation found was a moderately strong, negative relationship between median household income and voter error rate for the 2002 election. The correlation between the two was not significant for the 2006 election cycle.

No description available.