Fundraising and vote distribution: a non-equilibrium statistical approach
Abstract
The number of votes correlates strongly with the money spent in a campaign, but the relation between the two is not straightforward. Among other factors, the output of a ballot depends on the number of candidates, voters, and available resources. Here, we develop a conceptual framework based on Shannon entropy maximization and Superstatistics to establish a relation between the distributions of money spent by candidates and their votes. By establishing such a relation, we provide a tool to predict the outcome of a ballot and to alert for possible misconduct either in the report of fundraising and spending of campaigns or on vote counting. As an example, we consider real data from a proportional election with candidates, where a detailed data verification is virtually impossible, and show that the number of potential misconducting candidates to audit can be reduced to only nine.
Cite
@article{arxiv.1810.01936,
title = {Fundraising and vote distribution: a non-equilibrium statistical approach},
author = {H. P. M. Melo and N. A. M. Araujo and J. S. Andrade},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1810.01936},
year = {2020}
}