Estimating the Downsian locations of parties from the numbers of votes gained by the parties : We can use the normal as the voters' distribution(Application,Mathematical Politic,<Special Issue> "Joint Symposium of JSIAM Activity Groups 2006")

Abstract

Following the approach by Kishimoto et al. [4], this paper calculates the Downsian political locations of major four parties in the Japanese national elections from the numbers of votes gained by the parties, assuming that the voters' distributions at districts are t distributions (d.f=3,4,...,50). Since the results are similar to those in the case of normal density, we can use the normal density as the voters' distribution at the districts.