A wide range of potentially useful data are available for election forecasting: the results of previous elections, a multitude of preelection polls, and predictors such as measures of national and statewide economic performance. How accurate are different forecasts? We estimate predictive uncertainty via analysis of data collected from past elections (actual outcomes, preelection polls, and mod...

In the last years Spanish politics have transitioned from bipartidism to multipartidism. This change led to an unstable situation which finally evolved to the rare scenario of two general elections in the period of six months. The two elections had a main difference: two important left-wing parties formed a coalition in the second election while they had run separately in the first one. In the ...

Opinion polls have been the bridge between public opinion and politicians in elections. However, developing surveys to disclose people's feedback with respect to economic issues is limited, expensive, and time-consuming. In recent years, social media such as Twitter has enabled people to share their opinions regarding elections. Social media has provided a platform for collecting a large amount...

Do “niche” parties—such as Communist, Green, and extreme nationalist parties—adjust their policies in response to shifts in public opinion? Would such policy responsiveness enhance these parties’ electoral support? We report the results of statistical analyses of the relationship between parties’ policy positions, voters’ policy preferences, and election outcomes in eight Western European democ...

Risk tolerance is fundamental to decision-making and behaviour. Here we show that individuals' tolerance of risk follows a weekly cycle. We observed this cycle directly in a behavioural experiment using the Balloon Analogue Risk Task (Lejuez et al., 2002; Study 1). We also observed it indirectly via voting intentions, gathered from 81,564 responses across 70 opinion polls ahead of the Scottish ...

Digital systems have simplified the management, accounting, transfer, and dissemination of all types of information. However, they have not yet been often successfully applied to a very difficult and rewarding task of a democratic administration: facilitating the acquisition, evaluation and refinement of the ideas and opinions of large bodies of constituents. Consequently, administrative ideas ...

Social media are an important source of information about the political issues, reflecting, as well as influencing, public mood. We present an analysis of Twitter data, collected over 6 weeks before the Brexit referendum, held in the UK in June 2016. We address two questions: what is the relation between the Twitter mood and the referendum outcome, and who were the most influential Twitter user...

Understanding the public by analysing wants, interests and expectations regarding their involvement in archaeology is one of strategic aims Europae Archaeologiae Consilium (EAC). Cultural heritage has been topic several opinion polls Poland over past few years. In 2011 2015, Narodowy Instytut Dziedzictwa (National Institute Heritage) carried out two representative surveys. Subsequent focusing o...

Political candidates often believe they must focus their campaign efforts on a small number of swing voters open for ideological change. Based on the wisdom of opinion polls, this might seem like a good idea. But do most voters really hold their political attitudes so firmly that they are unreceptive to persuasion? We tested this premise during the most recent general election in Sweden, in whi...