Home Public AffairsPolitics Part III: The Shaky World of Elections

Part III: The Shaky World of Elections

by Michael Polzella

Presidential elections and earthquakes have a lot in common. To predict elections, I worked with Vladimir Keilis-Borok, the world’s leading earthquake forecaster, to recast presidential elections in geophysical terms.

We conceptualized such elections, not as Republican versus Democrat, as liberal versus conservative, or as one candidate versus another, but as stability – the White House party is re-elected – or earthquake – the White House party is defeated.

Earthquake forecasters look at the physical environment for patterns associated with stability and upheaval in the earth; we look at the political environment for patterns associated with stability or upheaval in our elections.

Allan Lichtman, Distinguished Professor of History, American University

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