INFLUENCING YOUR VOTE

PRIYA ELANGOVAN, JAMELIA MAYS, MORGAN ROBERTS

The 2016 election was hacked -- and more importantly, savvy social media manipulators used information about voters to target ads These tools and strategies are only going to get better over timeUnderstanding how and why people make their voting decisions is extremely important

WHY THIS MATTERS

People participated in the Views of the Electorate Research (VOTER) Survey in December 20168,637

Respondents answered questions on topics such as: 

SURVEY SAYS...

Party identificationView of different identity groupsVote in the 2016 election and vote in hypothetical matchupsOpinions on party platformsBeliefs on the American political system and your relation to it

As most of you know know, the Electoral College makes it so you are not trying to convince the majority of the population to vote for you, just the

people in the important swing states.

QUESTION 1: WHAT ISSUES TO

COVER BY STATE

 Use a combination of classifying and clustering techniques to determine the most important issue in each state (2016 taught us that a consistent platform is not needed)

 THE PLAN 

Used decision trees to determine how an individual's opinion on a group predicts their vote in the 2016 presidential election

QUESTION 2: PREDICTING VOTE BASED ON

BIAS TOWARD OR AGAINST GROUPS

76.6% 

Accuracy

86.6%

Accuracy

Use clustering to determine various opinions on gender roles between ideologies.

QUESTION 3: IDEOLOGY & GENDER ROLES

Very Liberal Moderate

Conservative

Very

Conservative

Liberal

Use clustering to determine various opinions on gender roles between ideolgies

QUESTION 3: IDEOLOGY & GENDER ROLES

Very

LiberalModerate Conservative Don't Know

Very

Conservative Liberal

Women should return to their

traditional roles in society

Strongly Agree

Somewhat Agree

Somewhat Disagree

Strongly Disagree

Increased opportunities for

women have significantly

improved the quality of life in

the United States.

Strongly Agree

Somewhat Agree

Somewhat Disagree

Strongly Disagree

3.3% 3.9% 5.1% 6.5% 19.3% 6.4%

1.1% 5.0% 12.9% 20.7% 29.1% 19.8%

6.8% 14.2% 28.1% 41.7% 24.3% 32.7%

88.9% 77.0% 53.9% 31.1% 27.3% 41.1%

51.9% 52.3% 33.7% 29.5% 35.6% 22.1%

40.9% 37.8% 53.3% 53.9% 41.8% 58.4%

5.5% 8.1% 10.6% 14.1% 16.2% 14.4%

1.7% 1.8% 2.5% 2.5% 6.4% 5.1%

THERE IS MORE

TO COME