Identification of areas of vote concentration : evidences from Brazil

Abstract

In spite of the recent progress in the discussion on vote regional concentration brought by Avelino et al. (2011), there is still a lack of determination of the districts internal areas where candidates obtained their votes. Synthetic concentration indices, as the G index, do not allow for evaluation in disaggregated levels, as municipalities, which would be relevant for the verification of the areas of a candidates political influence. This paper aims at bridging this gap through the joint utilization of two other indicators, the Location Quotient (LQ) and the Horizontal Cluster (HC), that use different measurement units. These indices were applied to the elections of federal representatives in Brazil from 1994 to 2010, and the results were compared to those obtained by Avelino et al. (2011). The application reaches its aimed result, clearly showing the places where the candidates votes are located in the electoral districts.