Bazi {Relectoral}

Utilities. Generation of *.bazi files

Description

BAZI is a freely available Java program that implements various methods of distributing seats for proportional representation systems. It offers the possibility of using divisor methods as well as quota methods. The program can be downloaded from https://www.math.uni-augsburg.de/htdocs/emeriti/pukelsheim/bazi/ Instructions on its use can be found at the following webpage: https://opus.bibliothek.uni-augsburg.de/opus4/frontdoor/index/index/docId/601. With this function you obtain flat ASCII files, with extension '.bazi' that structures the data in the form that can be understood by BAZI program and obtain the results that can be accessed with this application. This function has been designed so that it can be used both automatically or manually, that is to say, it will work autonomously if after giving the corresponding parameters it connects to the databases of the Spanish Ministry of the Interior, downloads the results and generates the file with extension ".bazi". The manual procedure, is designed to be provided with the appropriate data and that this function is responsible for transforming them to the format that BAZI understands to generate the results for which it is programmed. Let's see below how to proceed in each case.

First of all, it should be pointed out that the "camino" parameter must be provided both with the manual and the automatic procedure, and it should indicate the path to be used to store the file with the ".bazi" extension that is generated as a result of this process. It must also be taken into account that a path with writing permission for R must be provided.

The manual or automatic procedure is indicated by the "Auto" parameter of the Bazi() function, so that if "TRUE" (default value) is valid, the automatic procedure will be executed and otherwise the manual one.

Usage

Bazi(
  Ano = 0,
  Mes,
  camino = "",
  cota = 3,
  Auto = TRUE,
  votes,
  seats,
  Titulo = ""
)

Arguments

Ano

. For automatic procedure only. This value indicates the year of the data you want to download. This data can be numerical or of character type (better numeric)

Mes

. For automatic procedure only. This value refers to the month in which the election was held. It must be of character type with two digits always i.e. "04" is valid but "4" is not.

camino

. For manual and automatic procedure. You must indicate a local hard disk path where you download the file from the Ministry of Interior (once the process is finished it will be deleted automatically), and then the file will be written with the extension '.bazi' ready to be used by BAZI. Please note that this path must indicate a disk space with write permission so that the R program can save the results into it.

cota

. Only for automatic procedure. It will be the electoral threshold that the user wants to use. In the case of the Congress of Deputies in Spain it is 3 per cent (parties with less than 3 per cent of the valid votes do not take part in the distribution), and it is the value that has been assigned by default.

Auto

. To choose whether to use manual and automatic procedure. If it is equal to TRUE, the automatic procedure is executed, otherwise the manual procedure is carried out.

votes

. Only needed for manual procedure. It must be a dataframe type object with the following column structure: The first column must contain the name of the electoral districts to be considered. And then there will be a column for each political party to be taken into account, in such a way that one column will be identified by the acronym of the corresponding party, and will contain the votes of that formation in each of the districts where it has been presented as an electoral option. In those places where it has not been elegible, or it has not overcome the electoral threshold that is to be taken into account, a value of zero is added, in such a way that the Bazi() function takes this into account so as not to count these cases in the generation of the final file (the file with the extension ".bazi").

seats

. Only needed for manual procedure. It is a two-column dataframe. The first column contains the names of the electoral districts (which must have the same name and be in the same order as those provided in the "votes" dataframe) and the second column indicates the number of Members of Parliament to be elected in each electoral district.

Titulo

. Only needed for manual procedure. It must be a string of characters that are the ones that head the file with extension ".bazi" that is generated.

Value

The result is a flat ASCII file with its own information structure to be read by BAZI Java program and which has the following generic name 'Congreso_AAAA_MM.bazi', where YYYY is the year of the electoral process and MM is the two-digit month. In the case of using a manual procedure the file will have the name 'Congreso.bazi'.

Examples

Bazi(Ano = 2019,"04","F:/")

# Manual example

vo <- data.frame(
 circu=c("c1","c2","c3","c4","c5","c6","c7","c8","c9"),
 p1=c(200,300,0,0,250,360,145,0,0),
 p2=c(0,0,450,467,576,346,234,0,437),
 p3=c(243,567,0,0,345,634,456,634,0),
 p4=c(0,367,384,134,267,0,0,364,146),
 p5=c(345,123,234,254,123,543,342,45,0),
 p6=c(23,45,234,0,0,354,254,56,123)
)

se <- data.frame(
 circu=c("c1","c2","c3","c4","c5","c6","c7","c8","c9"),
 dip=c(3,4,5,3,2,6,2,4,3)
)

Bazi(camino="F:/",Auto=FALSE, votes=vo,seats=se, Titulo="Fichero_prueba")