Exploring spatial analysis of the voting patterns in the Afghanistan president elections of 2019

In recent years, the geographical factor has been increasingly studied in electoral processes. The purpose of this study is to identify and explore the spatial pattern of votes in the first round of Afghanistan's presidential election in 2019. The votes of 14 election candidates at the district level was collected from Independent Election Commission (IEC). To measure spatial autocorrelation and identify spatial patterns, global and local Moran Index were used. The results of Moran's index are positive for the votes of all candidates, which indicates the spatial cluster pattern. Then clusters and outliers were investigated according to the ethnic map. The results show that the ethnicity factor is important in the formation of spatial clusters of electoral votes in Afghanistan. Spatial approach increases our understanding of the important processes that can be caused by the context conditions in each area. Thus, this research provides an accurate scientific support for further research in the field of political science, political and social geography of Afghanistan.