In an interesting statistical study that I did with a couple of my 4.0 friends1, we set out to find whether all the data that election commission collects from each candidate has any predictive power on their chances of winning. Our stated objective was:
The election commission of India collects various data on candidates of Lok Sabha elections. This data includes such variables as age, assets, liabilities, number and nature of criminal cases registered against the candidate, educational status etc.
The authors were interested in studying the effects (or the absence thereof) of these variables on the outcome of the election.2