4 ms·
It's described under the 'simulation method' heading. Unless you have a reason to suggest otherwise, it's reasonable to assume voters' preferences follow a norm
by seabee 15y ago
It's described under the 'simulation method' heading. Unless you have a reason to suggest otherwise, it's reasonable to assume voters' preferences follow a normal distribution.
- JoeAltmaier 15y agoVoters get polarized. In fact that's what All the candidates try to do. Are any elections normal?
- seabee 15y agoYou are implying that there are no moderate (or 'swing') voters, which is foolish when the big parties actively reach out for these people. Instead, issues get polarised. Both parties and candidates have several different issues, so voters' actual preferences depend on which issues are important to them. You also get tribal voters ("My family has always voted conservative") who are unlikely to care about the issues in any election, but these cancel each other out somewhat in a plurality or AV/IRV vote. Nevertheless, I hope we can agree that accurately modelling voting habits is complicated, not simple.