warren@ihnss.UUCP (Warren Montgomery) (10/08/84)
The current issue of American Scientist (published by the Sigma Xi scientific honor society) has an interesting article on analyzing voting patterns. Asside from pointing out some of the better known paradoxical results of elections, it presents some interesting data and theories on the american political system (probably applicable elsewhere as well). These include: - A claim that peoples positions on most of the issues since WW-II can be accurately predicted by their score on a liberal-conservative scale. - A discussion of how exterme positions can be passed in referenda based on chosing the fallback position (i.e. what happens if the referndum doesn't pass) properly. - Distributions of voters, the senate, and special interest groups on the liberal-conservative scale. - Voters are in a tight distribution in the middle, probably in the middle by definition of the scale. - Interest groups are highly polarized, most falling outside of 99% of the voters on one side or the other. - Senators are in a very broad distribution, heavy on the extremes, again most outside of 90% or so of the voters. - Discussions on how the distributions above arise, why our elective representatives are more extreme in their views than most of the electorate, and the thrashing that causes a state to alternate between extremes. There are no big solutions to the polarization of our government suggested, but it makes interesting reading, and requires no special political or mathematical knowledge to appreciate. -- Warren Montgomery ihnss!warren IH ((312)-979) x2494