Doctoral Dissertation Research: New Methods for Spatial Analysis of Electoral Districts

博士论文研究项目将开发一种新的通用方法来衡量个别地区对与立法单位的不同配置相关的优势估计的影响。 博士生将实证研究现有指标的地区边界配置和新的措施，他将开发和测试之间的关系。 他将评估选举优势分析中常见的基本假设，并将评估不同措施的有效性以及选举建模技术中的基本统计假设，以确定估计对空间依赖性的稳健性。 该项目将扩大对选举动态的基本了解。 它将提高选举模型的准确性，保真度和实用性，并将为分析立法区计划提供新的工具，从而促进有关选举单位边界配置的社会辩论。 本计画所发展之模拟技术亦可应用于其他空间模式之敏感度分析。 作为博士论文研究改进奖，该奖项还将提供支持，使有前途的学生建立一个强大的独立的研究事业。博士生承担这个项目将扩展现有的对称性措施，以检查个别地区的贡献估计不对称的重新划分计划。 这些新的地区影响的地方措施将被用来分析影响奇怪的形状地区对一个计划的整体估计优势，一个群体比其他人。 将评估选举模式的两个基本组成部分。 学生将采访重新划分官员和利益相关者，指导和通知选举优势的新措施的发展，以确保它们在实践中是有意义和有用的。 他还将评估地理空间依赖性对估计一个团体在立法机构中赢得的席位份额与该团体在所有地区获得的选票份额之间关系的影响。 他将评估立法选举模型的潜在空间错误，他将评估在何种程度上增加对一个政治团体的总支持是由一组独立的，随机分布的地区变化建模。 学生还将研究选举波动的空间结构，以改进新的地方影响措施所依赖的模型。

The doctoral dissertation research project will develop a new general method to measure the impact individual districts have on estimates of advantage associated with different configurations of legislative units. The doctoral student will empirically examine the relationship between existing indicators of district boundary configuration and new measures that he will develop and test. He will evaluate the fundamental assumptions common in the analysis of electoral advantage, and he will assess the validity of different measures as well as fundamental statistical assumptions in electoral modeling techniques in order to determine the robustness of estimates to spatial dependence. This project will expand basic understanding of electoral dynamics. It will improve the accuracy, fidelity, and usefulness of electoral models, and it will provide new tools for analyzing legislative district plans, thereby contributing to societal debates about the configuration of electoral unit boundaries. The simulation techniques developed in this project also will be applicable for sensitivity analysis of other kinds of spatial models. As a Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement award, this award also will provide support to enable a promising student to establish a strong independent research career.The doctoral student undertaking this project will extend existing symmetry measures to examine individual district contributions to the estimated asymmetry of a redistricting plan. These new local measures of district influence will be used to analyze the impact strangely shaped districts have on a plan's overall estimated advantage for one group over others. Two fundamental components of electoral models will be assessed. The student will interview redistricting officials and stakeholders to guide and inform the development of new measures of electoral advantage in order to ensure they are meaningful and useful in practice. He also will evaluate the impact of geospatial dependence in estimating the relationship between the share of seats a group wins in a legislature and the share of votes the group receives across all districts. He will assess legislative election models for potential spatial misspecification, and he will assess the degree to which an increase in aggregate support for a political group is modeled by a set of independent, randomly distributed district changes. The student also will examine the spatial structure of electoral swings to improve the models on which the new local influence measures depend.