Political redistricting: Algorithm, theoretical considerations, and the case of Finnish parliamentary elections
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School of Business |
Master's thesis
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en
Pages
71 + 4
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Abstract
In the 2019 Finnish parliamentary elections the district sizes ranged from 7 to 36 representatives. The districts are based on the regions of Finland and the number of representatives is based on the Finnish population living in the districts. Consequently, the theoretical electoral thresholds in the districts ranged from 2,7% to 12,5%. These significant differences in electoral thresholds create unequal setting for voters based on where they live, violating the rule of “one person, one vote.” This thesis concentrates on the research problem of “how to divide Finland into equal size electoral districts” to provide a more equal solution for districting. The empirical part of the thesis presents a K-means clustering-based algorithmic method to divide Finland into twelve equal sized districts. The clusters represent districts, and the algorithm enables to control the lower and upper limits of the cluster sizes, that is, the minimum and maximum populations of the districts. The data used in the clustering is the x and y coordinates of municipalities, multiplied by their number of Finnish citizens. Seven districting models are presented, each of which is run with different parameters for the algorithm. The models are evaluated against the districting criteria of equal population, compactness and contiguity to assess their performance. Each of the models performs considerably better on population equality than the current districting. There seems to be an inverse relationship of some degree between population equality and compactness, meaning that more equal population between districts can be achieved only by making the shapes of the districts less compact. All of the models are quite close to the current districting by the locations of the districts on the map. The main differences to the current districting are that in the proposed models the district of Häme is dissolved and its municipalities are allocated to other districts and the district of Uusimaa is divided into western and eastern districts.Description
Thesis advisor
Wallenius, JyrkiMalo, Pekka