0000000001322872
AUTHOR
Jocelyn Evans
A New Multinomial Accuracy Measure for Polling Bias
In this article, we propose a polling accuracy measure for multi-party elections based on a generalization of Martin, Traugott, and Kennedy's two-party predictive accuracy index. Treating polls as random samples of a voting population, we first estimate an intercept only multinomial logit model to provide proportionate odds measures of each party's share of the vote, and thereby both unweighted and weighted averages of these values as a summary index for poll accuracy. We then propose measures for significance testing, and run a series of simulations to assess possible bias from the resulting folded normal distribution across different sample sizes, finding that bias is small even for polls…
Candidate localness and voter choice in the 2015 General Election in England
Previous research has demonstrated a significant relationship between the geographical distance from a voter to a candidate and the likelihood of the voter choosing that candidate. However, models of this relationship may be mis- or under-specified, by not taking into account voters’ perceptions of distance or not controlling for other possible factors related to a candidate’s ‘localness’ which may influence vote choice. Using a two-wave panel survey carried out during the 2015 UK General Election, this article tests a more fully specified alternative-specific multinomial probit model of candidate-voter distance. We show that, although the effect size is smaller than in previous tests, cand…
Estimating Polling Accuracy in Multiparty Elections Using Surveybias
Any rigorous discussion of bias in opinion surveys requires a scalar measure of survey accuracy. Martin, Traugott, and Kennedy (2005, Public Opinion Quarterly 69: 342-369) propose such a measure A for the two-party case, and Arzheimer and Evans (2014, Political Analysis 22: 31-44) demonstrate how measures A'i, B, and Bw for the more common multiparty case can be derived. We describe the commands surveybias, surveybiasi, and surveybiasseries, which enable the fast computation of these binomial and multinomial measures of bias in opinion surveys. While the examples are based on pre-election surveys, the methodology applies to any multinomial variable whose true distribution in the population…
Geolocation and voting: Candidate–voter distance effects on party choice in the 2010 UK general election in England
The effect of geographical distance between candidate and voter on vote-likelihood in the UK is essentially untested. In systems where constituency representatives vie for local inhabitants' support in elections, candidates living closer to a voter would be expected to have a greater probability of receiving that individual's support, other things being equal. In this paper, we present a first test of this concept using constituency data (specifically, notice of poll address data) from the British General Election of 2010 and the British Election Survey, together with geographical data from Ordnance Survey and Royal Mail, to test the hypothesis that candidate distance matters in voters' cho…
Candidate geolocation and voter choice in the 2013 English County Council elections
The degree of ‘localness’ of candidates, including their residential location, has long been theorised to influence voters at election time. Individual-level tests of distance effects in the 2010 British general elections demonstrated that, controlling for standard explanations of vote, the distance from a voter’s home to that of the candidate was negatively associated with the likelihood of voting for that candidate. To test this theory in a sub-national electoral context more likely to produce distance effects than a national election, this paper builds upon previous analysis by using the 2013 English County Council elections. It improves upon the previous analysis in a number of ways, a…
Political Geography
Replication dataset for J. Evans, K. Arzheimer, R. Campbell, P. Cowley (2017) 'Candidate localness and voter choice in the 2015 General Election in England', Political Geography.