Modelling the Impact of Scandals: the case of the 2017 French Presidential Election

This paper proposes an agent-based simulation of a presidential election, inspired by the French 2017 presidential election. The simulation is based on data extracted from polls, media coverage, and Twitter. The main contribution is to consider the impact of scandals and media bashing on the result of the election. In particular, it is shown that scandals can lead to higher abstention at the election, as voters have no relevant candidate left to vote for. The simulation is implemented in Unity 3D and is available to play online.