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Title: A SPATIO-TEMPORAL ANALYSIS OF VOTER TURNOUT IN THE ASSEMBLY ELECTIONS IN WEST BENGAL (2006-2016): A STUDY IN ELECTORAL GEOGRAPHY
Authors: MD MOTIBUR RAHMAN, RUMANA KHATUN
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1MD MOTIBUR RAHMAN, 2RUMANA KHATUN 1. Research Scholar, Department of Geography, Aligarh Muslim University, Aligarh (India) 2. Research Scholar, Department of Geography, Aligarh Muslim University, Aligarh (India)
MLA 8 RAHMAN, MD MOTIBUR, and RUMANA KHATUN. "A SPATIO-TEMPORAL ANALYSIS OF VOTER TURNOUT IN THE ASSEMBLY ELECTIONS IN WEST BENGAL (2006-2016): A STUDY IN ELECTORAL GEOGRAPHY." Int. j. of Social Science and Economic Research, vol. 3, no. 8, Aug. 2018, pp. 3804-3828, ijsser.org/more2018.php?id=265. Accessed Aug. 2018. APA RAHMAN, M., & KHATUN, R. (2018, August). A SPATIO-TEMPORAL ANALYSIS OF VOTER TURNOUT IN THE ASSEMBLY ELECTIONS IN WEST BENGAL (2006-2016): A STUDY IN ELECTORAL GEOGRAPHY. Int. j. of Social Science and Economic Research, 3(8), 3804-3828. Retrieved from ijsser.org/more2018.php?id=265 Chicago RAHMAN, MD MOTIBUR, and RUMANA KHATUN. "A SPATIO-TEMPORAL ANALYSIS OF VOTER TURNOUT IN THE ASSEMBLY ELECTIONS IN WEST BENGAL (2006-2016): A STUDY IN ELECTORAL GEOGRAPHY." Int. j. of Social Science and Economic Research 3, no. 8 (August 2018), 3804-3828. Accessed August, 2018. ijsser.org/more2018.php?id=265.
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Abstract: India is the largest democracy in the world. Democracy is a social philosophy and the most geographic form of government wherein people have the power to make decision about issues of politics and also they chose their representative. The paper attempts to study a spatio-temporal analysis of voter turnout in the West Bengal assembly elections from 2006 to 2016. Electoral geography is relatively a very later emerging field of research in geography and remained as the sub-field of political geography. It is the study of geographical aspects of organization, management and the result of elections. Voting turnout means the percentage of eligible voters who cast a ballot in an election. Voting turnout is measured as the percentage of registered voters in a constituency (a geographical area) who actually exercise their voting right at time of election. So, it is clear that identification of the spatial pattern and trends of voter turnout can be used as an effective tool to assess the level of political awareness in a region. The study analyze spatial and changing pattern of voter turnout and find out the impact of socio-economic variables on voter turnout. The present study is conducted in West Bengal assembly election (2006-2016). West Bengal is one of the most densely populated states of India and located in the eastern part of the country. The entire study is based on secondary source of data. The electoral data have been collected from Election commission of India, New Delhi, Chief Electoral officer, Kolkata, CSDS (Centre for the study of Developing Societies). All the analysis is done through various statistical techniques like mean, standard deviation, coefficient of variation, correlation. Choropleth maps are used to depict the spatial distribution of different levels of voting and spatial variation of voting turnout is depicted in the form of Z-scores of percent votes polled. It finds out that 2011 assembly election has been recorded highest voter turnout, the south western part of the state has concentrated high change of voter turnout and low change of voter turnout has been found in southern and south-east part of the state. It shows increase trend of voter turnout among female electorate from 2006 to 2016 assembly elections. Several socio-economic variables i.e. agricultural labourers, agricultural workers, electorate density, sex ratio, rural population and SC population are strong positively associated with voter turnout during all study elections.

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