Posted by
Steve Smith on
Oct 29, 2020; 5:44pm
URL: http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/high-turnout-and-tight-races-tp7599243p7599273.html
uǝlƃ ↙↙↙ wrote:
> My incompetence is overwhelming. But I have found a couple of peer-reviewed articles that reflect Roger's point about reduction from high-dimension to low-dimension [⛧], which doesn't imply Nick's misrepresentation of what Roger said. But it does imply that high turnout elections will be less *predictable*. And by being less predictable, you're left with estimating the distribution of closeness of the outcome.
>
> So, if there are more points in the outcome space that are "not close", then "not close" is the higher probability.
>
> But I *think* the causal links between turnout and closeness are swamped by other things like anti-incumbent bias, lesser of 2 evils, and the partisan effect Gary raises.
And my own incompetence overwhelms Glen's in the game of "more
incompetent than though". When I read this I deleted the 1000 line
(and growing) thesis I was writing on this topic. I wish I could be as
succinct as this.
My instinct is to go to "correlation" only when causal relations are
hidden, overly tangled, or demonstrably wrong. Given that we only have
a presidential election every 12 years and have had only 45 elected
presidents, and a much shorter record (150 years?) of turnout, it seems
we *could* do some kind of exhaustive analysis (and perhaps some
have). In any given election from say 2000-2020 we have our own
personal experiences and opinions to draw on (and make the process less
objective?)
It would seem that National Politics are Complex Adaptive Systems with
multiple feedback loops leading to some auto-regulation with
intermittent, bounded runaway modes. The "normal" pendulum swing
between right/left is auto-regulation and the sweeping support for say
Obama and Trump in 08 & 16 were (bounded, positive) feedback loops (of
hope and change?).
I do think as elections/politics as a CAS suggest that their can be
modes of "competitive scaffolding" where the energy developed on one
side triggers an equal counter-energy on the oopposite, and vice-versa
in a vicous/virtuous cycle.
So I suppose my answer to the original question is that it can be
either/both... It seems likely to be a (at least) bimodal
distribution. A one-sided landslide can cause a large turnout while a
tight, competitive race can do the same. Maybe more interesting is what
leads to a low-turnout? Voter apathy (second term, a pendulum swing
toward a weak candidate?) seems to be the dominant cause?
- Steve
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