Statistical Considerations on Political Responsivity in Italy Analyzed Over the 70-Year Time Period from 1948 to 2018
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Matteo Cirillo
Abstract
The time evolution of the response of electors to political life is analyzed for the Italian Republic over a 70-year span in which 18 political elections have taken place. The basis for the performed analyses is the official data available from the Italian Ministry of Interiors exposing the results of the political elections from 1948 until 2018. The attention is concentrated on parameters providing information on the responsivity of the electors to country’s political life. These parameters, expressed in adequate percentages, are the effective number of voters and the percentage of these expressing blank or spoilt ballots. The time dependence of these parameters, over the analyzed period, shows regularities, correlations, and interesting peculiarities. The analysis concerns the results for both Chamber of Deputies and Chamber of Senators available, for each election, all along the 70-year time span that are those relative to people voting on the national territory. The results demonstrate that percentages of blank and spoilt ballots represent useful parameters to trace the responsivity of electors. Hypotheses for explaining the results obtained from the statistical analyses are presented both at technical and socio-political level.
Acknowledgment
I wish to thank Davide Cassi, Silvio De Siena, and Marco Zannetti for critical readings of the manuscript and relevant comments.
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Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Editors’ Note
- Articles
- Debate Reaction Ideal Points: Political Ideology Measurement Using Real-Time Reaction Data
- Heuristic Synchronization of Real-Time Response Data
- Assessing the Impact of Political Involvement on the Reliability and Validity of Virtualized Real-time-response Measurement
- Tracing Policy-relevant Information in Social Media: The Case of Twitter before and during the COVID-19 Crisis
- Election and Public Administration Research
- Statistical Considerations on Political Responsivity in Italy Analyzed Over the 70-Year Time Period from 1948 to 2018
- The Results of Exit Polls in Kansas to Verify Voting Machine Counts in the November 2016 Election
- External Peer Challenge in Local Government: The Role of Spatial Spillover and Past Performance
