Os efeitos produzidos pelo método de converter votos em cadeiras têm estado no centro do debate brasileiro desde a Constituição de 1988 e a reforma política nunca deixou a agenda do debate político, dentro e fora da academia. Os argumentos, no geral, dizem respeito ao fortalecimento dos partidos e ao aumento da accountability eleitoral. Este artigo se propõe a analisar os efeitos de mudanças dos distritos eleitorais. Essas questões estão inscritas em uma discussão mais ampla sobre os impactos do sistema eleitoral no sistema político, bem como sobre o equilíbrio delicado entre governabilidade e representação. Consequentemente, estão diretamente relacionadas à qualidade do sistema democrático.

The effects produced by the method to convert votes into legislative seats have been at the center of the debate in Brazil since the 1988 Constitution, and since then political reform has never left the agenda of the political debate, both inside and outside of the university. The arguments are, in general, the strengthening of parties and the increase of electoral accountability. This article proposes to analyze the effects of changing the electoral districts. These issues are inscribed in a larger discussion about the impacts of the electoral system on the political system, as well as about the delicate balance between governability and representation. Consequently, they are directly related to the quality of the democratic system.

In spite of the recent progress in the discussion on vote regional concentration brought by Avelino et al. (2011), there is still a lack of determination of the districts' internal areas where candidates obtained their votes. Synthetic concentration indices, as the G index, do not allow for evaluation in disaggregated levels, as municipalities, which would be relevant for the verification of the areas of a candidate's political influence. This paper aims at bridging this gap through the joint utilization of two other indicators, the Location Quotient (LQ) and the Horizontal Cluster (HC), that use different measurement units. These indices were applied to the elections of federal representatives in Brazil from 1994 to 2010, and the results were compared to those obtained by Avelino et al. (2011). The application reaches its aimed result, clearly showing the places where the candidates' votes are located in the electoral districts.