Do barriers to candidacy reduce political competition? Evidence from a bachelor’s degree requirement for legislators in Pakistan

In the 2002 election, candidates for Pakistan’s federal legislature had to possess at least a bachelor’s degree. This policy disqualified 60 out of the 207 incumbent legislators from running for election again. Using a difference-in-differences approach with panel data on all electoral constituencies in Pakistan, I find that this ballot access restriction does not affect political competition across all constituencies with disqualified incumbents equally. Stronger political competition is defined as a larger number of candidates contesting election, a smaller vote share and vote margin for the winning candidate, and a less concentrated candidate field, as measured by a Herfindahl–Hirschman index (HHI) of vote shares. Competition declined significantly in constituencies where the disqualified incumbent belonged to a small party and where literacy levels were lower (signifying a smaller pool of substitute candidates). However, political competition increased in areas where the disqualified incumbent was stronger in terms of his winning vote margin.     

Voting for locals: Voters’ information processing strategies in open-list PR systems

While most of the literature on information shortcuts in open-list PR systems focuses on the importance of ballot position effects, the influence of a candidate’s localness has widely been ignored by existing studies. In this paper, I address this research gap and argue that voting patterns in open-list PR systems are more versatile than existing research would suggest. By analyzing a special characteristic of the open-list PR system employed in the parliamentary elections of Hamburg, it is shown that a large portion of voters chooses to vote for local candidates irrespective of the ballot position of the candidate. The paper further controls for factors conditioning the effect and finds that it remains strong even after taking them into consideration. The results have important implications for the representativeness of open-list PR systems, ballot paper design, as well as for our understanding of voters’ decision making process.     

Coping with complexity: Ballot position effects in the Finnish open-list proportional representation system

Many studies show that the order of candidates’ names on the ballot has an effect on voting. Less informed and indifferent voters may simplify the voting process by using the ballot position of candidates as a voting cue. By studying six parliamentary elections in Finland, this study first demonstrates that the relationship between ballot position and preference votes follows a reversed J-shaped curve. Candidates listed early on the ballot win the most preference votes, while candidates listed near the end have an advantage over those listed in the middle. Furthermore, the ballot position effect grows stronger with the complexity of the electoral environment. The ballot position effect increases as the number of candidates on the party list increases, the candidates-to-seats ratio increases and the number of incumbents on the list decreases.     

District level competition in Mexico’s chamber of deputies: an embedded analysis

Why does Mexico’s mixed legislative system diverge from Duverger’s Law? Rather than rehash cultural and historical explanations, we suggest two institutional factors – a fused ballot and compulsory voting laws – may explain this divergence. Cross-national evidence controlling for these factors suggests Mexico is not an outlier and that the fused ballot encourages multiparty district competition. The results also suggest ways reforms could bring competition closer toward Duvergerian expectations.     

Non-voted ballots, the cost of voting, and race

The enormous controversy over Florida’s 2000 presidential election focused everyone’s attention on ballots with no recorded vote in presidential races, but non-voting generally becomes greater farther down the ballot and the drop-off rate varies by type of machine. Ward-level data for the 1992, 1996 and 2000 elections in Ohio demonstrate that only looking at races at the top of the ballot is misleading. The rush to eliminate punch card ballots actually increases the number of non-votes for other offices than it reduces them for the presidential election at the top. Differential impacts of voting machines by race, gender, and age are also examined.     

Mobilizing Interests: Group Participation and Competition in Direct Democracy Elections

We examine group mobilization in direct democracy elections by assessing the conditions under which interests will actively support or oppose ballot measures. Motivating our analysis is that the decision to mobilize is driven by the costs and benefits of group participation, a calculus shaped by issue characteristics, state political institutions, and the electoral context. Using data from initiative and referendum measures appearing on statewide ballots from 2003 to 2008, we find that ballot measures involving social and tax issues are likely to produce competition among groups and increase the overall number of groups involved. In addition, we find that group competition and levels of mobilization increased in response to how difficult it would be for the legislature to undo the change brought about from passage of a ballot measure. Lastly, group competition and levels of mobilization increased for ballot measures appearing in nonpresidential election years and for ballot measures featuring a close election. Taken together, our results suggest that groups engage strategically in direct democracy elections to pursue a mix of policy and political goals.     

The impact of closeness on electoral participation exploiting the Italian double ballot system

We investigate whether the degree of political competition affects electoral turnout by using Italian municipal election data from 1993 to 2011. Relying on elections held using a double ballot system, we apply an instrumental variable technique exploiting the actual closeness between the two leading candidates in the first round as an instrument for closeness in the second round. The use of this strategy to estimate the impact of closeness on turnout is new to the literature. Controlling for municipal fixed effects and candidates’ characteristics, we find that expected closeness significantly increases turnout, thus supporting the idea that the expected benefits of voting increase in tighter political races. The estimated effect is much larger than that found when measuring closeness with ex-post electoral results, suggesting quite a relevant endogeneity bias in previous studies.     

Misleading ballot position cue: Party voting in Korea's nonpartisan local elections

In this study, I present evidence that ballot order can provide a misleading cue to voters. In South Korea, nonpartisan municipal legislative elections were held concurrently with other partisan local elections until 2002. The ballot order of the candidates running in nonpartisan elections was randomly determined, whereas it was determined according to a party's number of seats in the national legislature for candidates running in partisan elections. Therefore, if voters are fully informed, the vote share for the candidate listed first in the nonpartisan ballot should not be correlated with the vote share for the party listed first on the partisan ballot. However, I find that the vote share for a first-listed candidate increases when the first-listed party's vote share increases. I also find that the presence of an incumbent does not significantly reduce the degree to which voters mistakenly use ballot position as a party cue.     

Too much choice,too little impact: a multilevel analysis of the contextual determinants of preference voting

Abstract

Despite the rich and growing body of research addressing how turnout and party choice depend on the institutional context, far less is known about the impact of the political environment on voters’ propensity to vote for candidates – not parties. Recent single-country studies have focused almost exclusively on individual-level resource- and identity-based differences in preference voting. Combining data from the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems (CSES) and Participation and Representation in Modern Democracies (PARTIREP) election studies in six countries, this article provides the first comprehensive, cross-national test of the impact of macro-contextual factors on a voter’s decision to indicate a candidate preference, instead of simply casting a party list vote. It demonstrates that both the failure of preference votes to affect the allocation of seats and choice overload dissuade voters from marking a candidate name on the ballot. These contextual factors affect informed and uninformed voters differently, moreover. The findings have important implications for electoral scholars and political practitioners when designing electoral systems.     

Ballot position and election results: New evidence from a natural experiment

It is well-known that candidates listed first on the ballot paper tend to receive more votes than other candidates. However, experimental studies that confirm this truism mostly stem from first-past-the-post systems. Do we also find ballot position effects in PR systems where voters may vote for a party instead of a specific candidate? We investigate a natural experiment in Danish national elections involving more than 9,000 candidates on almost 100 different ballot papers. Our findings show that ballot positions, indeed, have a causal effect on election results in PR systems. Since Danish national elections constitute a least-likely case, our findings indicate that ballot position effects are much more empirically relevant than suggested by existing research.     

Violence, bribery, and fraud: the political economy of?elections in Sub-Saharan Africa

Post-Soviet African democratization has introduced elections into contexts that often lack restraints upon the behavior of candidates, resulting in the emergence of voter intimidation, vote-buying, and ballot fraud. We propose a model of electoral competition where, although some voters oppose violence, it is effective in intimidating swing voters. We show that in equilibrium a weak challenger will use violence, which corresponds to a terrorism strategy. Similarly, a nationally weak incumbent will use repression. However, a stronger incumbent facing local competition will prefer to use bribery or ballot fraud. We discuss the applicability of the model to several African elections.     

You have to pay to play: Candidate and party responses to the high cost of elections in Japan

What effect does the financial cost of running for office have on candidate entry decisions, and does it differ depending on a candidate's motivations for running? We use a regression discontinuity design and panel data analysis to estimate the causal effect of campaign costs on candidate entry in Japan, where the amount of money required as a deposit for ballot access increased periodically to become one of the highest in the world, and a considerable part of campaign costs. We find that candidates from the major office-seeking parties were likely to be replaced after losing the deposit, and that these parties nominated fewer candidates following increases in the deposit amount. However, we find no such deterrent effect for fringe candidates. This finding calls into question the effectiveness of the deposit at fulfilling its supposed purpose, and sheds light on the differences between the financial and strategic coordination incentives that influence the nomination decisions of parties.     

Ballot position and election results: Evidence from a natural experiment

Candidates listed first on the ballot paper regularly receive more votes than other candidates, but what role does ballot layout play in this connection? Experimental studies from first-past-the-post systems show that the ballot position effect is causal as the order of names functions as a cue to voters. Does this also hold for PR systems where voters may vote for a party instead of a specific candidate? We identify a natural experiment in Danish local and regional elections involving more than 10,000 candidates on 103 different ballot papers using ballot layout to study ballot position effects. We find indeed, the ballot position/layout has a causal effect on election results in PR systems. Our findings indicate that the empirical domain of ballot position and layout effects is much wider than suggested by previous research.     

Beyond roll-off: individual-level abstention on ballot measure voting

Why do individuals who have turned out to vote abstain from voting on certain ballot measures? Previous work examines abstention at the aggregate level by observing ballot roll-off, and focuses on the readability of the ballot summary for a measure as the primary determinant of whether individuals will abstain. In contrast, I hypothesize that three individual-level factors interact with the accessibility (i.e. ease or difficulty) of a ballot measure’s issue content to influence one’s propensity to abstain. Individuals with low issue information, who are risk averse, and who attach low importance to the issue should be more likely to abstain from voting than those with high knowledge, who are risk-acceptant, and who attach high importance to the issue. Furthermore, the impact of each of these individual-level traits strengthens as the issue raised in the measure becomes increasingly complex. I find strong empirical evidence for these hypotheses using an experimental design.     

Electoral contexts that assist voter coordination: Ballot position effects in Poland

Hypothetically, in the open list PR system, all contestants, independently of their ballot position, have the same chance of winning a mandate. In practice, candidates placed at the top of the ballot enjoy a large surplus of votes. Their success can be explained by the primacy effect, in which the first ballot position acts as a focal point. The analysis of 6187 candidates running for the Polish Sejm in 2007 finds not only significant gains for top candidates, but that proximity to the upper end of the ballot likewise matters. It correspondingly discovers a weak benefit for candidates placed last on the list. Other sources of candidate advantage such as incumbency, capital city effect, age and gender are also investigated.     

The Impact of Electoral Reform: "Open Elections" and the Louisiana Party System

This article examines effects of the "open-elections" law passedby the Louisiana legislature in 1975. The law eliminated traditionalclosed party primaries, creating instead, an open-electionssystem that requires all candidates, regardless of party affiliation,to appear on the same ballot. By and large, the new system hasnot had a significant effect on party competition, party success,or voter turnout in Louisiana.     

Ballot Reform as Suffrage Restriction: Evidence from Brazil's Second Republic

Few innovations in democratic institutional design are considered as fundamental as the introduction of voting through the use of a uniform, official, and secret ballot. One account claims that the official ballot liberates dependent voters from the dictates of local elites, thereby enhancing democratic competition. Another argues that in contexts of widespread illiteracy, its adoption may be tantamount to a suffrage restriction. This article adjudicates between these views by drawing upon an original data set of municipal‐level voting returns from Brazil's Second Republic (1945–1964). The unique staggered rollout of the official ballot during this period permits one to assess its impact with unprecedented accuracy. The article finds that the primary consequence of ballot reform was suffrage restriction. Rather than liberating poor and dependent voters, the official ballot made it exceedingly difficult for these individuals to vote. Moreover, parliamentary debates indicate that this was an anticipated and intended effect of the reform.     

The impact of cuing candidate quality on female candidates

How can parties improve the electoral prospects of traditionally under-represented women? We argue that if a party signals that a single female candidate is of high quality, other women appearing on the ballot with her will receive a boost in support. More specifically, if a female candidate heads a party's list in the district, other women from her party will be rewarded with more votes. We test our reasoning by examining the nomination and election of women in three Free-List Proportional Representation systems where voters can cast multiple preference votes for individual candidates. We find robust support for the finding that when voters receive a signal that women can be quality candidates, they tend to reward additional women with preference votes regardless of their rank on the ballot.     

The first one wins: Distilling the primacy effect

Research has shown that in proportional, flexible list systems, ballot list position influences electoral success. In this paper we investigate to what extent this is due to the primacy effect, a psychological bias towards the first option in a list. We also examine alternative explanations such as the electoral beneficial traits these candidates share and extra media coverage they receive. Using data from the 2014 Belgian elections, we find that candidates with higher ballot list positions indeed score better because they have more political experience and receive more media attention. We also find strong evidence for the primacy effect which is caused by a confirmation bias as well as ballot list position being the easiest heuristic for voters.     

Two-round elections, one-round determinants? Evidence from the French municipal elections

Using a new database of French municipalities that covers 821 towns and two elections (2001 and 2008), we examine how the budget structure, degree of electoral competition and the economic context affect the share of votes for the incumbent. We take into account the institutional details of the two-round structure of the electoral process created by French electoral rules (dual ballot under plurality rules). We show that in the first round of the electoral process, spending on equipment (including infrastructures) can influence the voter, and that electoral competition has a strong impact on the incumbent’s score. In the second round, the incumbent’s vote is affected more by national considerations and local budget variables have no effect. We show that the dynamics between the first and the second rounds are intense. The results suggest that the determinants of each round’s outcome in a two-round electoral process are different.