#EG2023

From Andorra Research + Innovation, we have sought to contribute to a better understanding and even a better functioning of the 2023 general elections. We have done so in multiple ways.

First, by helping to improve the always delicate process of converting the votes obtained by the various candidates into seats. Andorra's electoral law has certain technical issues that have been addressed through successive revisions of the text (and even by some rulings from the Superior Court interpreting it), but some still persist. The software currently used by the Government did not incorporate the changes introduced since 2011 by legislation and case law, and although in most possible combinations of results the operation of converting votes into seats could have been carried out without problems, the special characteristics of these elections (number of candidacies, expected support for the candidacies, etc.) made us suspect that some of the secondary mechanisms provided for in the electoral legislation would have to be activated in these elections, causing any software application that did not incorporate them to fail. To confirm these suspicions—now transformed into hypotheses—we simulated 60,000 different combinations of results for six different scenarios, and the conclusions were very clear: the tools being used until now could fail, depending on the scenarios, from one in a hundred times (an extremely high figure for a matter as delicate as an election result) to sixty-six out of a hundred times. Some much more improbable phenomena also occurred once in a thousand times, and others once in ten thousand times. Nevertheless, we developed a new vote-counting application, which now worked in 100% of the simulated cases, and we provided it to the Government. You can download the simulations and their analysis here.

The second contribution is to make this automated vote-to-seat transformation application (which can also be used to simulate results and analyze certain parameters) available to the general public and, in particular, to other researchers and analysts, political parties, various candidates, and the media. For example, the vote-to-seat projections that will be made by Andorra Televisió on election night will be based on the model provided by Andorra Televisió. The calculation tool (in Excel format, to make it accessible to the widest possible audience) is available here.

Third, we have sought to contribute to a better understanding of the Andorran electoral system and the particularities of the 2023 general elections through analysis and outreach. Thus, we have given interviews and participated in analysis segments with multiple media outlets in the country (Diari d'Andorra, Cadena SER, RNA, ATV) and from outside the country (Agencia EFE, Agence France Press, Catalunya Ràdio and Vilaweb), we have advised researchers from other countries interested in the Andorran electoral process, we have delivered a lecture on the Andorran elections to all the political scientists of the Catalan Political Science Association, and we have participated with a researcher in analyzing the elections throughout Andorra Televisió's special election night program. Additionally, the in-depth analysis of the general elections (and also the December municipal elections) will be published as a monograph in the Yearbook of Andorran Politics, which Andorra Research + Innovation will publish in spring 2024.

Finally, leveraging the multidisciplinary expertise of Andorra Research + Innovation, we have developed a website to follow, for the first time in Andorra, the election night in real time and in a highly visual format, with projections and analysis. Until now, the only way to follow the results was through the elections.ad website, which offers results every two minutes but, as an official site, is limited to providing raw counting data. On eg2023.ari.ad, in contrast, real-time answers are provided to six key questions of election night, questions related to the vote count and also to the analysis of the results. More information about this application, here.