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，以衡量单个地区对不同立法单位配置相关优势的估计的影响。这位博士生将对现有的地区边界配置指标与他将开发和测试的新措施之间的关系进行实证研究。他将评估选举优势分析中常见的基本假设，并将评估选举建模技术中不同衡量标准以及基本统计假设的有效性，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、保真度和有用性，并将为分析立法地区计划提供新的工具，从而促进关于选举单位边界配置的社会辩论。本项目开发的模拟技术也将适用于其他类型空间模型的敏感性分析。作为博士论文研究改进奖，该奖项还将提供支持，使有前途的学生能够建立强大的独立研究事业。承担这个项目的博士生将扩展现有的对称性测量，以检查个别地区对重新划分计划的估计不对称性的贡献。这些衡量地区影响力的新的地方指标将被用来分析形状奇怪的地区对一个计划相对于其他群体的整体估计优势的影响。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选区的官员和利益相关者，以指导和告知新的选举优势措施的发展，以确保这些措施在实践中有意义和有用。他还将评估地理空间依赖的影响，以估计一个团体在立法机构赢得的席位份额与该团体在所有选区获得的选票份额之间的关系。他将评估立法选举模型是否存在潜在的空间错误说明，他还将评估一个政治团体总支持率的增加在多大程度上是由一系列独立的、随机分布的选区变化来模拟的。学生还将研究选举摇摆的空间结构，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.