uǝlƃ ↙↙↙ wrote: > My incompetence is overwhelming. But I have found a couple of peer-reviewed > articles that reflect Roger's point about reduction from high-dimension to > low-dimension [⛧], which doesn't imply Nick's misrepresentation of what Roger > said. But it does imply that high turnout elections will be less > *predictable*. And by being less predictable, you're left with estimating the > distribution of closeness of the outcome. > > So, if there are more points in the outcome space that are "not close", then > "not close" is the higher probability. > > But I *think* the causal links between turnout and closeness are swamped by > other things like anti-incumbent bias, lesser of 2 evils, and the partisan > effect Gary raises.
And my own incompetence overwhelms Glen's in the game of "more incompetent than though". When I read this I deleted the 1000 line (and growing) thesis I was writing on this topic. I wish I could be as succinct as this. My instinct is to go to "correlation" only when causal relations are hidden, overly tangled, or demonstrably wrong. Given that we only have a presidential election every 12 years and have had only 45 elected presidents, and a much shorter record (150 years?) of turnout, it seems we *could* do some kind of exhaustive analysis (and perhaps some have). In any given election from say 2000-2020 we have our own personal experiences and opinions to draw on (and make the process less objective?) It would seem that National Politics are Complex Adaptive Systems with multiple feedback loops leading to some auto-regulation with intermittent, bounded runaway modes. The "normal" pendulum swing between right/left is auto-regulation and the sweeping support for say Obama and Trump in 08 & 16 were (bounded, positive) feedback loops (of hope and change?). I do think as elections/politics as a CAS suggest that their can be modes of "competitive scaffolding" where the energy developed on one side triggers an equal counter-energy on the oopposite, and vice-versa in a vicous/virtuous cycle. So I suppose my answer to the original question is that it can be either/both... It seems likely to be a (at least) bimodal distribution. A one-sided landslide can cause a large turnout while a tight, competitive race can do the same. Maybe more interesting is what leads to a low-turnout? Voter apathy (second term, a pendulum swing toward a weak candidate?) seems to be the dominant cause? - Steve - .... . -..-. . -. -.. -..-. .. ... -..-. .... . .-. . FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn GMT-6 bit.ly/virtualfriam un/subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com archives: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/ FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/
