Election is an indispensable element of modern-day representative democracies. Representatives who take desicions on behalf the people, are determined by election. The process of determining ...representatives and the power structure in the country differs according to the preferred electoral system. Therefore, in addition to other government systems, in parliamentary systems that require to have a legislative majority in terms of obtaining and using power, electoral system is considerably significant. Italy, which was recently known for the instability of the government, went on to a series of electoral laws reform in order to create strong and stable powers. From the beginning of the reform process to the present day four amendments have been made with different names. This amendments are Mattarellum made in 1993, Porcellum made in 2005, Italicum made in 2014 and Rosatellum made in 2017. The annulment decisions of Italian Constitutional Court was effective in this process. The Italian legislative organ had to implement last two election laws (Italicum and Rosatellum) after the annulment decisions of Constitutional Court. This process, accelerated by some legal and political factors in the last twenty-five years, has not been reached the desired result yet. In this study, the ongoing change process in Italy, has been analyzed in detail.
This study examines the dynamic relationship between changes in oil prices and the economic policy uncertainty index for a sample of both net oil-exporting and net oil-importing countries over the ...period 1997:01–2013:06. To achieve that, an extension of the Diebold and Yilmaz (2009, 2012) dynamic spillover index based on structural decomposition is employed. The results reveal that economic policy uncertainty (oil price shocks) responds negatively to aggregate demand oil price shocks (economic policy uncertainty shocks). Furthermore, during the Great Recession of 2007–2009, total spillovers increase considerably, reaching unprecedented heights. Moreover, in net terms, economic policy uncertainty becomes the dominant transmitter of shocks between 1997 and 2009, while in the post-2009 period there is a significant role for supply-side and oil specific demand shocks, as net transmitters of spillover effects. These results are important for policy makers, as well as, investors interested in the oil market.
•We examine the dynamic relation between oil price changes and economic policy uncertainty (EPU).•We extend the dynamic spillover index of Diebold and Yilmaz (2009, 2012) using structural decomposition.•EPU (oil price shocks) responds negatively to aggregate demand oil price shocks (EPU shocks).•EPU is the dominant transmitter of shocks between 1997 and 2009.•Post-2009, supply-side and oil specific demand shocks are the net transmitters of shocks.
This article exploits a new spillover directional measure proposed by Diebold and Yilmaz (2009, 2012) to investigate the dynamic spillover of return and volatility between oil and equities in the ...Gulf Cooperation Council Countries during the period 2004 to 2012. Our results indicate that return and volatility transmissions are bi-directional, albeit asymmetric. In particular, the oil market gives other markets more than it receives in terms of both returns and volatilities. These trends were more pronounced in the aftermath of the Global Financial Crisis in 2008 as the net contribution of oil has intensified after a burst during the crisis. The empirical evidence from the sample is consistent with a system in which oil is playing the dominant role in the information transmission mechanism between oil and equities in the GCC countries.
► The paper provides new insights into the spillover of returns and volatility between oil and equities in a group of oil producing countries in the Arabian Gulf. ► Spillovers are bi-directional, albeit asymmetric. ► The information transmission from oil to equities dominates the transmission in the opposite direction. ► Transmissions have intensified following the financial turmoil in 2008.
For decades, election research in the United States has focussed on the potentially disenfranchising consequences of evolving election laws and procedures. With the widespread changes and ...requirements caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, elections have adapted to prevent the spread of the virus. Despite implementing system changes, it is unclear what impact the pandemic had on the voter experience. This paper presents a case study, performed in collaboration with the Rhode Island Board of Elections, to investigate a Rhode Island polling location operated during the 2020 General Election and quantify the effect of COVID-19 mitigating procedures on system performance. To validate the modelling approach, a case study is developed for a Rhode Island polling location using data collected from that location during the 2020 General Election. The validated model is then adapted to create a hypothetical non-COVID-19 system to simulate the polling location pre-COVID-19. Simulated system performance of the COVID-19 and non-COVID-19 models are statistically compared to quantify the impact of COVID-19 mitigation strategies on system performance. This approach may be applied in future work to assist in election preparation for sudden system changes or in response to new election laws.
Motivated by the trend in literature that explores the effects of facilities layout planning in service systems, this work aims to observe the impact of layout and path directionality on voting ...system performance. A two-step voting system is considered, and a 1,000 sqft room is modelled under various layout and path directionality conditions. Discrete event simulation is used for a computational simulation analysis using the Bonferroni Approach to Multiple Comparisons to determine differences in average voter travel distance and average voter time-in-system. The results indicate that layout method and path directionality significantly affect average voter travel distance, with the perimeter layout with a unidirectional path being the most efficient. For the average time-in-system, the layout affected some turnout levels and between some layout methods; however, path directionality had no significant effect. Similar to average travel distance, the perimeter layout generally resulted in the most efficient time-in-system. This work exemplifies the critical role that layout plays in the performance of elections and presents valuable insight into how layout can be utilised to design more efficient election systems.
•Electoral control models ways of changing the outcome of an election via adding, deleting, or partitioning candidates or voters.•A long-running project of research seeks to classify the major voting ...systems in terms of their computational resistance.•We show that fallback voting is resistant to each of the common types of control except two destructive control types.•We show that Bucklin voting performs almost as well as fallback voting in terms of control resistance.•We investigate the parameterized control complexity of Bucklin and fallback voting.
Electoral control models ways of changing the outcome of an election via such actions as adding, deleting, or partitioning either candidates or voters. To protect elections from such control attempts, computational complexity has been used to establish so-called resistance results. We show that fallback voting, an election system proposed by Brams and Sanver 12 to combine Bucklin with approval voting, displays the broadest control resistance currently known to hold among natural election systems with a polynomial-time winner problem. We also study the control complexity of Bucklin voting and show that it performs almost as well as fallback voting in terms of control resistance. Furthermore, we investigate the parameterized control complexity of Bucklin and fallback voting, according to several parameters that are often likely to be small for typical instances. In a companion paper 28, we challenge our worst-case complexity results from an experimental point of view.
A boardroom election is an election with a small number of voters carried out with public communications. We present BVOT, a self-tallying boardroom voting protocol with ballot secrecy, fairness, and ...dispute-freeness. BVOT works by using a multiparty threshold homomorphic encryption system in which each candidate is associated with a set of masked primes. Each voter engages in an oblivious transfer with an untrusted distributor: the voter selects the index of a prime associated with a candidate and receives the selected prime in masked form. The voter then casts their vote by encrypting their masked prime and broadcasting it to everyone. By hiding the mapping between primes and candidates, BVOT provides voters with insufficient information to carry out effective cheating. The threshold feature prevents anyone from computing any partial tally-until everyone has voted. In contrast to some existing boardroom voting protocols, BVOT does not rely on any zero-knowledge proof; instead, it uses oblivious transfer to assure ballot secrecy and correct vote casting. Also, BVOT can handle multiple candidates in one election. BVOT prevents cheating by hiding crucial information: an attempt to increase the tally of one candidate might increase the tally of another candidate.
This book is the first in a planned trilogy by Pippa Norris on challenges of electoral integrity to be published by Cambridge University Press. Unfortunately too often elections around the globe are ...deeply flawed or even fail. Why does this matter? It is widely suspected that such contests will undermine confidence in elected authorities, damage voting turnout, trigger protests, exacerbate conflict, and occasionally lead to regime change. Well-run elections, by themselves, are insufficient for successful transitions to democracy. But flawed, or even failed, contests are thought to wreck fragile progress. Is there good evidence for these claims? Under what circumstances do failed elections undermine legitimacy? With a global perspective, using new sources of data for mass and elite evidence, this book provides fresh insights into these major issues.
Preference aggregation in a multiagent setting is a central issue in both human and computer contexts. In this paper, we study in terms of complexity the vulnerability of preference aggregation to ...destructive control. In particular, we study the ability of an election's chair to, through such mechanisms as voter/candidate addition/suppression/partition, ensure that a particular candidate (equivalently, alternative) does not win. And we study the extent to which election systems can make it impossible, or computationally costly (NP-complete), for the chair to execute such control. Among the systems we study—plurality, Condorcet, and approval voting—we find cases where systems immune or computationally resistant to a chair choosing the winner nonetheless are vulnerable to the chair blocking a victory. Beyond that, we see that among our studied systems no one system offers the best protection against destructive control. Rather, the choice of a preference aggregation system will depend closely on which types of control one wishes to be protected against. We also find concrete cases where the complexity of or susceptibility to control varies dramatically based on the choice among natural tie-handling rules.
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