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arXiv · 1706.09534

Multi-district preference modelling

Geoffrey Pritchard·Mark C. Wilson
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Abstract

Generating realistic artificial preference distributions is an important part of any simulation analysis of electoral systems. While this has been discussed in some detail in the context of a single electoral district, many electoral systems of interest are based on multiple districts. Neither treating preferences between districts as independent nor ignoring the district structure yields satisfactory results. We present a model based on an extension of the classic Eggenberger-Pólya urn, in which each district is represented by an urn and there is correlation between urns. We show in detail that this procedure has a small number of tunable parameters, is computationally efficient, and produces "realistic-looking" distributions. We intend to use it in further studies of electoral systems.

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Geoffrey Pritchard, Mark C. Wilson. 2017-06-29. Multi-district preference modelling. https://arxiv.org/abs/1706.09534

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