journal article Open Access Feb 22, 2024

Method to Forecast the Presidential Election Results Based on Simulation and Machine Learning

Computation Vol. 12 No. 3 pp. 38 · MDPI AG
View at Publisher Save 10.3390/computation12030038
Abstract
The forecasting of presidential election results (PERs) is a very complex problem due to the diversity of electoral factors and the uncertainty involved. The use of a hybrid approach composed of techniques such as machine learning (ML) and Simulation in forecasting tasks is promising because the former presents good results but requires a good balance between data quantity and quality, and the latter supplies said requirement; nonetheless, each technique has its limitations, parameters, processes, and application contexts, which should be treated as a whole to improve the results. This study proposes a systematic method to build a model to forecast the PERs with high precision, based on the factors that influence the voter’s preferences and the use of ML and Simulation techniques. The method consists of four phases, uses contextual and synthetic data, and follows a procedure that guarantees high precision in predicting the PER. The method was applied to real cases in Brazil, Uruguay, and Peru, resulting in a predictive model with 100% agreement with the actual first-round results for all cases.
Topics

No keywords indexed for this article. Browse by subject →

References
70
[1]
Charcon "A Multi-Agent System to Predict the Outcome of a Two-Round Election" Appl. Math. Comput. (2020)
[2]
Lynne, H., and Nigel, G. (2024, January 16). Social Circles: A Simple Structure for Agent-Based Social Network Models. Available online: https://www.jasss.org/12/2/3.html.
[3]
Norambuena "Twitter Sentiment Analysis for the Estimation of Voting Intention in the 2017 Chilean Elections" Intell. Data Anal. (2020) 10.3233/ida-194768
[4]
Graefe "German Election Forecasting: Comparing and Combining Methods for 2013" Ger. Politics (2015) 10.1080/09644008.2015.1024240
[5]
Bronner "Voting at 16: Intended and Unintended Consequences of Austria’s Electoral Reform" Elect. Stud. (2019) 10.1016/j.electstud.2019.102064
[6]
Stewart "Hillary’s Hypothesis about Attitudes towards Women and Voting in the 2016 Presidential Election" Elect. Stud. (2019) 10.1016/j.electstud.2019.03.010
[7]
Struber, S. (2010). The Effect of Marriage on Political Identification. Inq. J., 2, Available online: http://www.inquiriesjournal.com/a?id=127.
[8]
Fujiwara, T., Müller, K., and Schwarz, C. (2024, January 24). The Effect of Social Media on Elections: Evidence from the United States. Available online: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3856816.
[9]
Mujani "Religion and Voting Behavior: Evidence from the 2017 Jakarta Gubernatorial Election" Al-Jami’ah J. Islam. Stud. (2020) 10.14421/ajis.2020.582.419-450
[10]
Turan "Family’s Impact on Individual’s Political Attitude and Behaviors" Psycho-Educ. Res. Rev. (2017)
[11]
Park "Do the Welfare Benefits Weaken the Economic Vote? A Cross-National Analysis of the Welfare State and Economic Voting" Int. Political Sci. Rev. (2019) 10.1177/0192512117716169
[12]
Parada "Voters’ Rationality under Four Electoral Rules: A Simulation Based on the 2010 Colombian Presidential Elections" Rev. Desarro. Soc. (2011) 10.13043/dys.68.3
[13]
Burnap "140 Characters to Victory?: Using Twitter to Predict the UK 2015 General Election" Elect. Stud. (2016) 10.1016/j.electstud.2015.11.017
[14]
Jiao "Fuzzy Adaptive Network in Presidential Elections" Math. Comput. Model. (2006) 10.1016/j.mcm.2005.05.027
[15]
Hochreiter "Evolving Accuracy: A Genetic Algorithm to Improve Election Night Forecasts" Appl. Soft Comput. (2015) 10.1016/j.asoc.2015.05.033
[16]
Kononovicius "Empirical Analysis and Agent-Based Modeling of the Lithuanian Parliamentary Elections" Complexity (2017) 10.1155/2017/7354642
[17]
Kulachai, W., Lerdtomornsakul, U., and Homyamyen, P. (2023). Factors Influencing Voting Decision: A Comprehensive Literature Review. Soc. Sci., 12. 10.3390/socsci12090469
[18]
Roberts "A Delicate Hand or Two-Fisted Aggression? How Gendered Language Influences Candidate Perceptions" Am. Politics Res. (2022) 10.1177/1532673x211064884
[19]
Kang "Candidate Sex, Partisanship and Electoral Context in Australia" Elect. Stud. (2021) 10.1016/j.electstud.2020.102273
[20]
Werner "Voters’ Preferences for Party Representation: Promise-Keeping, Responsiveness to Public Opinion or Enacting the Common Good" Int. Political Sci. Rev. (2019) 10.1177/0192512118787430
[21]
Charron "Ideology, Party Systems and Corruption Voting in European Democracies" Elect. Stud. (2016) 10.1016/j.electstud.2015.11.022
[22]
Cunow "Less Is More: The Paradox of Choice in Voting Behavior" Elect. Stud. (2021) 10.1016/j.electstud.2020.102230
[23]
Cohen "Protesting via the Null Ballot: An Assessment of the Decision to Cast an Invalid Vote in Latin America" Polit Behav. (2018) 10.1007/s11109-017-9405-9
[24]
"Religious Voting and Moral Traditionalism: The Moderating Role of Party Characteristics" Elect. Stud. (2019) 10.1016/j.electstud.2019.102095
[25]
Plescia "On the Mismeasurement of Sincere and Strategic Voting in Mixed-Member Electoral Systems" Elect. Stud. (2017) 10.1016/j.electstud.2017.05.003
[26]
Zingher "On the Measurement of Social Class and Its Role in Shaping White Vote Choice in the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election" Elect. Stud. (2020) 10.1016/j.electstud.2020.102119
[27]
Bahnsen "How Do Coalition Signals Shape Voting Behavior? Revealing the Mediating Role of Coalition Expectations" Elect. Stud. (2020) 10.1016/j.electstud.2020.102166
[28]
Bytzek "Does Survey Mode Matter for Studying Electoral Behaviour? Evidence from the 2009 German Longitudinal Election Study" Elect. Stud. (2016) 10.1016/j.electstud.2016.04.007
[29]
Persson "Testing the Relationship between Education and Political Participation Using the 1970 British Cohort Study" Polit Behav. (2014) 10.1007/s11109-013-9254-0
[30]
Delmar, S.C., and Sajuria, J. (2024, January 16). Who Cares about Local Candidates? Finding Voters That Use Candidate Localness as a Cue for Their Vote Choices. Available online: https://osf.io/preprints/socarxiv/j5rpy.
[31]
Remmer "Stability and Change in Party Preferences: Evidence from Latin America" Elect. Stud. (2021) 10.1016/j.electstud.2021.102283
[32]
Burlacu "Corruption and Ideological Voting" Br. J. Political Sci. (2020) 10.1017/s0007123417000758
[33]
Stubager "One Size Doesn’t Fit All: Voter Decision Criteria Heterogeneity and Vote Choice" Elect. Stud. (2018) 10.1016/j.electstud.2017.12.002
[34]
He "Issue Cross-Pressures and Time of Voting Decision" Elect. Stud. (2016) 10.1016/j.electstud.2016.08.017
[35]
Guardado "Do Electoral Handouts Affect Voting Behavior?" Elect. Stud. (2018) 10.1016/j.electstud.2017.11.002
[36]
Rodon "Caught in the Middle? How Voters React to Spatial Indifference" Elect. Stud. (2021) 10.1016/j.electstud.2021.102385
[37]
Ceron "Using Sentiment Analysis to Monitor Electoral Campaigns: Method Matters—Evidence from the United States and Italy" Soc. Sci. Comput. Rev. (2015) 10.1177/0894439314521983
[38]
Stoetzer "Forecasting Elections in Multiparty Systems: A Bayesian Approach Combining Polls and Fundamentals" Political Anal. (2019) 10.1017/pan.2018.49
[39]
Balankin "The Core Vote Effect on the Annulled Vote: An Agent-Based Model" Adapt. Behav. (2015) 10.1177/1059712315592040
[40]
Fieldhouse "Cascade or Echo Chamber? A Complex Agent-Based Simulation of Voter Turnout" Party Politics (2016) 10.1177/1354068815605671
[41]
Sobkowicz, P. (2016). Quantitative Agent Based Model of Opinion Dynamics: Polish Elections of 2015. PLoS ONE, 11. 10.1371/journal.pone.0155098
[42]
Yin "Agent-Based Opinion Formation Modeling in Social Network: A Perspective of Social Psychology" Phys. A Stat. Mech. Its Appl. (2019) 10.1016/j.physa.2019.121786
[43]
Doucette "Inferring True Voting Outcomes in Homophilic Social Networks" Auton. Agent Multi-Agent Syst. (2019) 10.1007/s10458-019-09405-1
[44]
Cao, L., Bazzan, A.L.C., Symeonidis, A.L., Gorodetsky, V.I., Weiss, G., and Yu, P.S. (2012). Proceedings of the Agents and Data Mining Interaction, Taipei, Taiwan, 2–6 May 2011, Springer. 10.1007/978-3-642-27609-5
[45]
Budiharto "Prediction and Analysis of Indonesia Presidential Election from Twitter Using Sentiment Analysis" J. Big Data (2018) 10.1186/s40537-018-0164-1
[46]
Lord, D., Qin, X., and Geedipally, S.R. (2021). Highway Safety Analytics and Modeling, Elsevier.
[47]
Guyon, I., Nikravesh, M., Gunn, S., and Zadeh, L.A. (2006). Feature Extraction: Foundations and Applications, Springer. Studies in Fuzziness and Soft Computing. 10.1007/978-3-540-35488-8
[48]
Ament, S.E., and Gomes, C.P. (2021, January 1). Sparse Bayesian Learning via Stepwise Regression. Proceedings of the 38th International Conference on Machine Learning, PMLR, Virtual.
[49]
Silaparasetty, N. (2020). Machine Learning Concepts with Python and the Jupyter Notebook Environment: Using Tensorflow 2.0, Apress. 10.1007/978-1-4842-5967-2_10
[50]
Burkov, A. (2024, January 18). The Hundred-Page Machine Learning Book by Andriy Burkov. Available online: http://themlbook.com/.

Showing 50 of 70 references

Metrics
8
Citations
70
References
Details
Published
Feb 22, 2024
Vol/Issue
12(3)
Pages
38
License
View
Cite This Article
Luis Zuloaga-Rotta, Rubén Borja-Rosales, Mirko Jerber Rodríguez Mallma, et al. (2024). Method to Forecast the Presidential Election Results Based on Simulation and Machine Learning. Computation, 12(3), 38. https://doi.org/10.3390/computation12030038