Abstract

CASTANEDA, Gonzalo. Benford's Law and its Applicability in the Forensic Analysis of Electoral Results. Polít. gob [online]. 2011, vol.18, n.2, pp.297-329. ISSN 1665-2037.

This article analyses the viability of Benford's Law in the forensic study of the detection of electoral frauds. According to this law, the initial digits of a set of numbers follow a logarithmic distribution as long as the data has not been disturbed. Implementation of this law in socioeconomic data -or in other types of data- depends on the presence of a two-fold randomized process: events of a distribution, and probability distributions selected from a reduced group. Through agent-based models, it is demonstrated that this law does not offer a robust test to distinguish between clean elections and elections that have been manipulated. In the model-in-question, partisan preferences are modified by means of social transmission and the parameters are calibrated with data from the Mexican 2006 elections.

Keywords : Benford's Law; analysis of electoral fraud; agent-based models; political preferences; Mexican 2006 elections.

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