Search results for "Voting"

Estimating the non-market benefits of water quality improvement for a case study in Spain: A contingent valuation approach

2012

Abstract This article addresses an important topic related to the application of the European Water Framework Directive (WFD) in Spanish watersheds. Results on a contingent valuation study, aimed to assess the non-market benefits of water quality improvements in the Guadiana river basin (GRB), are shown. Special attention has been paid to the issue of zero willingness-to-pay (WTP) responses, while addressing the possible presence of self-selection caused by protest responses. The results (i) indicate that sample selection bias is not a problem in our application, (ii) allow us to identify some key determinants of voting behaviour, and (iii) through the use of different econometric models al…

A multiscale approach to automatic and unsupervised retinal vessel segmentation using Self-Organizing Maps

2016

In this paper an automatic unsupervised method for retinal vessel segmentation is described. Self-Organizing Map, modified Fuzzy C-Means, STAPLE algorithms and majority voting strategy were adopted to identify a segmentation of the retinal vessels. The performance of the proposed method was evaluated on the DRIVE database.

SecureBallot: A secure open source e-Voting system

2021

Abstract Voting is one of the most important acts through which a community can make a collective decision. In recent years, many works have focused on improving traditional voting mechanisms and, as a result, a wide range of electronic voting (e-Voting) systems have been proposed. Even though some approaches have achieved a proper level of usability, the main challenges of e-Voting are essentially still open: protect the privacy of participants, guarantee secrecy, anonymity, integrity, uniqueness, and authenticity of votes, while making e-Voting as trustful as voting. In order to address this issue, we present SecureBallot, a secure open-source e-Voting system that completely decouples the…

Secure e-voting in smart communities

2020

Nowadays, digital voting systems are growing in importance. This is an especially sensitive area, because elections can directly affect democratic life of many smart communities. The goal of digital voting systems is to exploit ICT technologies to improve the security and usability of traditional electoral systems. In this work we present a secure electronic voting system that guarantees the secrecy, anonymity, integrity, uniqueness and authenticity of votes, while offering a user-friendly experience to voters, putting them at ease through the use of technologies familiar to them. To ensure these fundamental security requirements, the system fully separates the registration and voting phase…

Opinion Dynamics and Collective Decisions

2021

We expect that democracy enables us to utilize collective intelligence such that our collective decisions build and enhance social welfare, and such that we accept their distributive and normative consequences. Collective decisions are produced by voting procedures which aggregate individual preferences and judgments. Before and after, individual preferences and judgments change as their underlying attitudes, values, and opinions change through discussion and deliberation. In large groups, these dynamics naturally go beyond the scope of the individual and consequently might show unexpected self-driven macroscopic systems dynamics following socio-physical laws. On the other hand, aggregated …

Democracy and Depression: A Cross-National Study of Depressive Symptoms and Nonparticipation

2020

Depression is the most common mental health disorder. It has consequences not only on individuals but also on social and political levels. We argue that depressive symptoms impair political participation by reducing the motivation and physical energy of sufferers. We test our hypotheses by conducting regression analyses of four nationally representative cross-sectional and longitudinal surveys that collectively span many democracies. Our results are threefold. First, we find that the severest depressive symptoms lower the probability of voting by 0.05–0.25 points, an effect that is exceeded only by education and age. Second, we show that depressive symptoms negatively affect political inter…

SPATIAL PATTERNS OF VOTING IN BUCHAREST AT THE EUROPEAN AND PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS OF 2019

2021

Social Choice in the Real World II: Cyclical Preferences and Strategic Voting in the Finnish Presidential Elections

1997

The empirical relevance of the theoretical results of social choice theory is still unclear. The most radical thesis, put forth by William Riker, is that politics is a highly unstable process, characterized by preference cycles and strategic voting. This article - a continuation of an earlier article published in this journal - examines the Finnish presidential election in 1925, 1931, 1937 and 1982. The conclusion is that preference cycle and strategic voting have had a significant impact in the discussed cases. The relevancy of the social choice approach and its relation to historical research are discussed.

From fringe to fringe: the shift from the clericalist League of Polish Families to the anticlericalist Palikot Movement 2001–2015

2017

The period between 2001 and 2015 brought two events in Poland that deserve to be called phenomena. In 2001 the rightist, clericalist League of Polish Families entered the Sejm. Ten years later, the leftist, anticlericalist Palikot Movement achieved spectacular success in the 2011 elections. These events give a picture of a radical shift in the Polish political scene: a rightist clericalist party disappeared from the right flank of the political scene, while a new, leftist-anticlericalist formation appeared. The article makes reference to a set of five explanations on both the causes and consequences (and permanence) of the observed changes. I argue that only a concurrence of a number of com…

Measuring populism across nations: testing for measurement invariance of an inventory of populist attitudes

2019

Abstract The rising voter support for populist parties in Western Democracies in recent years has incited academic interest in populist voters and attitudes connected to the voting propensity of populist actors. In line of this research, numerous scales to measure populist attitudes among voters have been proposed. In most cases, however, the measurement of populist attitudes was tailored to specific countries and its applicability to cross-national research on populism was not assessed. This article uses a cross-national survey to assess the measurement invariance, reliability, and validity of a deductively developed inventory for populist attitudes. The findings suggest that there is a co…