Part of the issue, he said, is that despite the available data, much electoral violence is local. “We ran a set in one country where we found that the possibility of violence could be correlated to the number of dogs outside, because worried people would pull their dogs in off the streets,” Bellish said. “That’s a very useful data point. But it’s hyperlocal and requires knowing humans on the ground. You can’t build that into a model.” Even ardent unrest-predictor advocates say that forecasting highly specific events, as opposed to general possibilities over time, is very unlikely.

Source: Washington Post January 07, 2022 13:37 UTC