News subtitle
A long-standing theorem in the study of American politics holds that candidates will run to the middle in an attempt to win support from the average voter.
But a mathematical model developed by a team in Associate Professor of Mathematics Feng Fu’s lab found that growing voter polarization, impediments to voting, and third-party candidates can push candidates to the extremes.
That’s the start of this article from Dartmouth. It’s even more depressing than this sounds because the model predicts that there’s a feedback loop of extremism: As more whacko candidates run and get elected, only whackos run the increasingly complicated gantlet required to actually vote.
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Last sentence – rather then “—-required to actually vote” – don’t u mean to “—actually run for office”-??
No, I mean as more whackos run there’s less point for non-whackos to get out and vote because you don’t have a good choice, especially as the GOP makes it harder to register and vote.
What impact might low voter turnout results like Croydon’s massive school budget cut have on voter decisions to participate?