The publicly available social network data on elections don't appear to be very serious. In other words, in this rather young (but already crowded) field, academics are still struggling with the optimal design of a survey using social network data. Brevan Howard Asset Management, co-founded by the billionaire Alan Howard, reportedly reduced risk ahead of the vote after using artificial intelligence to study social network data. In some cases, social network analysis has yielded slightly better results than the polls - but it suffers from the same shortcomings as traditional surveys. For now, the use of "big data" to predict election results can only be hit or miss.

Source: New Zealand Herald July 01, 2016 01:18 UTC