Electoral geography is the analysis of the methods, the behavior, and the results of elections in the context of geographic space and using geographical techniques. Specifically, it is an examination of the dual interaction in which geographical facts affect the political decisions, and the geographical structure of the election system affects electoral results. The purpose of the analysis is to identify and understand driving factors and the electoral characteristics of territories in a broad and integrative manner.Agnew, John. 1996. “Mapping politics: how context counts in electoral geography”. In Political Geography, Volume 15, Issue 2, pp. 129-146. Elsevier: London, United Kingdom.
Elections
Elections serve as the central political expression and exercise of power within democratic states,Jones, Martin, Jones, Rhys, and Woods, Michael. 2006. “Democracy, participation and citizenship”. In An Introduction to Political Geography: Space, Place and Politics, Second Edition, pp. 137-157. Routledge: New York. and conducting elections in democracies requires the translation of the political decisions of the distributed voting public into resulting “seat” representation of the various constituencies, except in the cases of Israel and the Netherlands which each have only a single constituency. Johnston, Ron. 2002. “Manipulating maps and winning elections: measuring the impact of malapportionment and gerrymandering”. In Political Geography, Volume 21, pp. 1-31. Elsevier: Atlanta. It is philosophically accepted that in a democracy, each vote is equally valid amongst all other votes and thus each eligible voter casts only one equally valued vote. However, disproportionality and bias towards specific voting groups arise in the construction of artificial constituency boundaries in that political parties and policies are unevenly and inaccurately represented in the aggregate results amongst the electoral regions when compared to the popular vote.
Electoral constituencies
The territorial unit with boundary distinctions in representative elections is commonly termed the constituency, district, or precinct, and serves as both a region for the tabulation and study of the electoral result. These boundaries are defined in various methods, which are unique to each state, and can cause alterations or skewing of aggregate vote results and by extension the true decision of the electorate.
Election mechanics Electoral geographers require the knowledge of the local and statewide laws and procedures for conducting elections, though it has been claimed that it is not within their purview to attempt to correct any observed flaws.Prescott, J.R.V. 1959. “The Function and Methods of Electoral Geography”. In Annals of the Association of American Geographers, Volume 49, Issue 3, pp. 296 – 304. John Wiley & Sons, Inc.: Hoboken. The details of voting or the parameters of the election in various states or in constituencies within the state are critical factors, which affect the levels of participation and can characterize the outcome. The mechanics of an election are fully described through identifying the pattern of constituencies, franchise qualifications and changes, and the method of the election. The patterning of constituencies is related to the spatial orientation and drawing of boundaries as detailed previously. The franchise qualifications define the eligible voter bloc, the electorate, and thus determine the range of relevant, critical issues, which apply to those who vote in an election, and alterations in enfranchisement can greatly alter the nature of the electorate and the outcome of the election. The methods of election are critical to analyzing the results, as it is impossible to adequately assess the proportionality of representation or validity of an electoral outcome without understanding how votes are cast and counted. For example, single-vote, winner take all systems can greatly disenfranchise minority voters as their selection is ultimately irrelevant in a two-party dominant system. However, in systems which employ proportional voting or ranked voting techniques, the extreme minorities receive greater opportunity for representation.
Electoral distortion and bias Regardless of the means by which boundaries are drawn, including by non-partisan or independent governmental associations, bias in electoral regions can always be observed. The United Kingdom serves as an example as the constituencies are established by a non-partisan commission and yet bias toward Labour has been observed in general elections since 1979.
Gerrymandering
Gerrymandering is a selective drawing of constituency boundaries in order to alter the results of an election. The popular or numerical election results within a constituency, precinct, or electoral district can be distorted by the act of gerrymandering. Common alterations to election results caused by gerrymandering are: Splitting or dilution of the concentrations of votes for one party so as to make that party the minority in a large portion of the constituencies in conjunction Concentrating the votes of one party into a selected few constituencies such that many of their votes are ‘wasted’, while creating many constituencies with only slight majorities in favor of the other party Placing two or more incumbents of one party within a single revised constituency, thus removing control of seats for that party Creating "winner takes all" multi-member districts with one party in the majority
Malapportionment
Malapportionment is unequal and disproportionate representation electoral systems with multiple constituencies. It is a violation of the democratic principle of “one person, one vote” in that constituency boundaries enclose populations of various size, which means that the votes of people in regions of lower population have greater representation per vote than those in regions with a higher population. The effect of malapportionment is observed when equivalent percentages of the total vote results in different numbers of seats for each party due to one party having greater control in smaller constituencies and another in larger constituencies.
Geographic context The spatial distribution and variation of the voting populace in conjunction with the demographic characteristics and delineation of voting regions provide a geographic context for the analysis of elections. Along with purely physical characteristics, distribution of economic resources, lines of communication, governmental and party platforms, and gender, ethnic, or class groups creates an interwoven fabric of people and opinion, which is accounted for in electoral analysis. A population settles for various social, economic, and cultural reasons which create a defined contour of both population density and related political opinion. However, this contour is not a static condition and changes in electoral results must be considered with respect to the change in the type of people and not just the change in their chosen politics. The distribution of politics has been attributed to various factors, one of which is described as a convergence of external stimuli. These stimuli can come in the form of state-supplied information, local cultural norms, religious affiliations, economic opportunity, and media presentation of issues. The degree of effect for each particular stimulus is then a result of the susceptibility of a particular geography. For example, policy dealing with the governmental treatment of an urban population would have greater importance to those in a territory with an urban densities and a far smaller importance in a sparser region.Morrill, Richard, Knopp, Larry and Brown, Michael. 2007. “Anomalies in red and blue: Exceptionalism in American electoral geography”. In Political Geography, Volume 26, pp. 525-553. Elsevier: Atlanta. A state or its political organizations has some power to affect these stimuli and are therefore considered as a contributing factor in the changes of election outcomes.
Physical contour Electoral geography considers the way in which the physical characteristics of a territory directly affect the population and thus the election decision of these people. The geographic location and associated natural factors are directly related to the potential in a specific region for political development and have an additional relationship with the electoral processes and policy decisions of the region. The study of electoral results has been shown to identify the regions of specific politics and the relative cohesion amongst these similar regions. Regions which share large numbers of physical or demographic characteristics, or both as these two factors are related, will demonstrate significant similarities in voting participation and patterns of outcome.
Economics, communications, and infrastructure
The economic development within a given region is also related to the development of its politics and the issues which are important to the electorate. A state with disproportionate economic development will necessarily come under pressure from the poorer constituencies to take action to redistribute wealth and level the economic prosperity, which will be observable in the electoral results. The range and availability of communication and issue awareness can affect perception of issues and skew rational decision making. If a populace is generally unaware of the implications of policy decisions they are less able to make informed decisions and are more readily manipulated by candidate or party claims and marketing techniques, which can make analysis difficult as no predictable rationale may exist for voting outcomes.
Culture, demographics, and political parties Background information detailing the established political parties, issues being contested in an election, and the mechanics of the election process also help to contextualize and understanding contributing factors in each individual election. Over time these factors may be changed as parties are formed or disbanded and policy issues are brought to vote or become obsolete, which can explain the shifting appearance of the electoral result over a period of time. The governmental and party platforms serve as categories into which voters are forced to classify themselves even though it is likely that no one party platform accurately captures the entirety of the opinions held by a voter. This makes consideration of the party platform or recent party activities critical in understanding the changes or stability of electoral results over space and time. Gender, ethnic, and class disparity can cause voting that is related to shared background qualities and experience as opposed to political opinions. This means that candidates from a particular area or common ethnicity can receive votes from the citizens of that area irrespective of their party affiliations or national because of their shared experience and mutual acquaintance. This has been referred to as the “friends and neighbors effect”.
Determinism