Simplified model relating blank and null votes to voter turnout from Brazilian state elections results

M. Cardoso, L.H.D. Afonso, R.R. Neli and W.E. Souza

Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, 2024, vol. 645, issue C

Abstract: Studies investigating opinion dynamics in elections have mainly focused on votes cast for candidates. However, voter opinions can also be expressed through blank and null votes when none of the candidates represents them. Therefore, our study proposed to model blank and null votes in a scenario of only two candidates using data from nine election years for Brazilian state governors that took place in a second round, making a total of 90 elections. We analyzed the relationship between the turnout and votes for each candidate, as well as blank and null votes, representing the three partitions of the votes in a second-round election. We found the behavior scaling laws for all elections and the three partition votes, totaling 270 fits. Combining this result with the probability conservation of the votes over the voter turnout, we developed a model for the blank and null votes depending on a single parameter. The scaling law behavior of blank and null votes allowed us to observe that voters in the larger populations are more difficult to win over.

Keywords: Election results; Blank and null votes; Scaling laws; Probability conservation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0378437124002863
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only. Journal offers the option of making the article available online on Science direct for a fee of $3,000

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:phsmap:v:645:y:2024:i:c:s0378437124002863

DOI: 10.1016/j.physa.2024.129777

Access Statistics for this article

Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications is currently edited by K. A. Dawson, J. O. Indekeu, H.E. Stanley and C. Tsallis

More articles in Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().