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Recently, voting in elections has become a major topic of debate. The legitimacy of election results is being questioned, whether it be elections on the government, municipality, university, or even department level. This led to a general distrust between the voting populations of developing countries and developed nations and electoral committees. Looking at election turnout rates, it becomes clear that an ever-widening rift between voters and trust in traditionally held elections has caused prominent voter apathy. The general population sees policymakers as not having taken serious strides in solving these problems. Electronic voting was seemingly introduced to alleviate some problems. Yet, the public has expressed concerns about election manipulation through hacking since electronic systems are notoriously vulnerable to those kinds of attacks and are hard to shield from. Introducing blockchain technology to this field is a logical step to evolving traditional e-voting systems. Traditional voting and, by extension, e-voting suffer from centralization, where a single entity oversees the election process. This creates a single point of failure. Thus, it becomes easy to tamper with voter data and election results. Blockchain technology offers a solution to decentralize and restore trust in the process; it embraces decentralization, the entire process becomes open to the public, and the need for a centralized managerial entity is reduced. In this paper, we introduce and implement a blockchain-based voting system that addresses the issues mentioned earlier in centralized voting. Moreover, our system proposes solutions to some of the problems and side-effects that are likely to happen when adopting blockchain-based voting systems, especially the anonymity of the voters and the confidentiality of the results until the time of the official announcement. We show that it is possible to have a voting system that accomplishes decentralization and trustworthiness for all the parties involved in the voting process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Theories of habit formation and transformative voting posit that voting has long-run consequences for turnout and political involvement, with younger voters possibly experiencing more pronounced effects from earlier eligibility. Long-term evidence of the effects of becoming eligible to vote at a younger age remains scarce. We use rich, long-term panel data from the United Kingdom to examine the effects of earlier voting eligibility on turnout and political involvement. By leveraging the election eligibility cutoff in a regression discontinuity design, our precise estimates document that earlier eligibility results in contemporaneous increases in several measures of political involvement. However, these short-term effects fade away quickly and do not translate into permanent changes in turnout propensity or political involvement. Our results imply that, in a setting with low institutional barriers to vote, the persistent and transformative effects of being eligible to vote at a younger age are short-lived at most. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Early voting laws intended to increase voter turnout seem to have had little to no effect on turnout. Why? We argue that the effects of early voting on turnout are contingent on campaigns providing citizens with information about the election, their choices, and how to vote early. When campaigns do so, turnout increases because citizens are more likely to vote – and more likely to vote early. Using individual-level panel data, we show that direct campaign contact increases turnout exclusively via the use of early voting. Using county-level data, we show that campaign ad volume also increases turnout via an increase in early voting turnout. Our results affirm our expectation that campaigns facilitate the expected mobilizing effects of early voting. At the same time, the effects of campaigns on early voting are small in magnitude, and emerge only under campaign mobilization conditions that are more the exception than the norm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: Medicine is increasingly influenced by politics, but physicians have historically had lower voter turnout than the general public. Turnout is even lower for younger voters. Little is known about the political interests, voting activity, or political action committee (PAC) involvement of emergency physicians in training. We evaluated EM trainees’ political priorities, use of and barriers to voting, and engagement with an emergency medicine (EM) PAC. Methods: Resident/medical student Emergency Medicine Residents’ Association members were emailed a survey between October–November 2018. Questions involved political priorities, perspective on single-payer healthcare, voting knowledge/behavior, and EM PACs participation. We analyzed data using descriptive statistics.  Results: Survey participants included 1,241 fully responding medical students and residents, with a calculated response rate of 20%. The top three healthcare priorities were as follows: 1) high cost of healthcare/price transparency; 2) decreasing the number of uninsured; and 3) quality of health insurance. The top EM-specific issue was ED crowding and boarding. Most trainees (70%) were supportive of single-payer healthcare: “somewhat favor” (36%) and “strongly favor” (34%). Trainees had high rates of voting in presidential elections (89%) but less frequent use of other voting options: 54% absentee ballots; 56% voting in state primary races; and 38% early voting. Over half (66%) missed voting in prior elections, with work cited as the most frequent (70%) barrier. While overall, half of respondents (62%) reported awareness of EM PACs, only 4% of respondents had contributed.  Conclusion: The high cost of healthcare was the top concern among EM trainees. Survey respondents had a high level of knowledge of absentee and early voting but less frequently used these options. Encouragement of early and absentee voting can improve voter turnout of EM trainees. Concerning EM PACs, there is significant room for membership growth. With improved knowledge of the political priorities of EM trainees, physician organizations and PACs can better engage future physicians.

This study examines the dynamic nature of voting in modern elections with wide voting windows. Our stylized two-period model predicts that, if voters are not myopic, turnout in the current period tends to increase as the costs in the other period increase. The model also predicts that overall turnout does not always decrease even when the costs increase. We test these predictions using novel data from Japan's General Election in 2017 with a weather disruption caused by a powerful typhoon. Our analyses show that the tremendous costs on Election Day shifted the timing of voting and did not decrease overall turnout in 2017, as compared to 2014. Our model and findings build a new benchmark to understand how voters decide their timing of voting. This study also has implications for the unprecedented popularity of early voting in the 2020 U.S. presidential election. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hvert år får norsk offentlighet informasjon om forhåndsstemmer i hver enkelt kommune før selve valgdagen. Det er imidlertid litt usikkert hva denne informasjonen kan brukes til? Høyt antall forhåndsstemmer i seg selv gir ingen prognose på nasjonalt nivå for om det blir høy eller lav valgdeltakelse. Over tidsrommet fra 1975 til 2019 har andelen forhåndsstemmer økt, mens den samlede valgdeltakelsen har gått ned. Imidlertid, gjennom å bruke 5 126 lokalvalg i Norge fra 1975 til 2019 avholdt ved tolv ulike anledninger, viser denne forskningskommentaren at endringer i andel forhåndsstemmer på lokalt nivå (i en kommune) gir en god prognose for endringer i valgdeltakelse i kommunen. På lokalt nivå kan forhåndsstemmer i en kommune være nyttig som en temperaturmåler for aktører (media, statsvitere og beslutningstakere) for å gi en prognose på den lokale valgdeltakelsen. Funnene indikerer også viktigheten av arbeidet med å tilrettelegge for forhåndsstemmer lokalt.

Political scientists have long recognized educational attainment as a strong predictor of voter turnout, but the mechanisms through which educational experiences lead voters to the polls remain underexplored. This research begins to open this proverbial black box to understand the specific types of scholastic experiences that encourage voting. Grounded in previous findings by scholars of policy feedback and political socialization, a mix of qualitative and quantitative data analyses reveal that nonacademic high school experiences can have powerful and lasting interpretive effects. Participants in performance and service-based extracurricular activities are consistently recognized for their efforts and connected to their communities, leading to interpretations of dignity, efficacy, and civic duty. As a result, these young Americans are more likely than their peers to vote in early adulthood. Further analyses uncover critical effects based on socioeconomic status: many interpretive educational experiences have more profound impacts on the voting behaviors of young citizens who may lack opportunities for positive political socialization in their home and social environments. Unfortunately, those young Americans whose participatory behaviors could be most impacted by uplifting extracurricular experiences are also least likely to have access to and participate in these programs, a gap that may have been exacerbated during the recent pandemic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We study if U.S. members of Congress who experienced an economic recession during early adulthood vote differently on redistribution-specific bills. We find that politicians who experienced a recession hold more conservative positions on redistribution, even compared to members of the same party. In light of recent empirical evidence showing that voters become more supportive of redistribution following a recession, our findings suggest that macroeconomic shocks might have a polarizing effect: recessions can create an ideological wedge between voters and their future representatives. We hypothesize and present evidence suggesting that this wedge might be explained by politicians' more privileged background. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Much attention is paid to the effect of election reforms in national and state elections. One such election reform is early voting. An ample amount of early voting scholarship focuses on turnout effects of early voting in national and state elections. Yet, little has been done on the turnout effects of early voting in local elections even though localities must adhere to these reforms. Using data from 2,449 mayoral elections in 849 Ohio municipalities from 2001 to 2013, I employ a fixed effects regression to assess the impact of early voting on municipal turnout. I find that early voting depresses local voter turnout. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We identify in-person early voting and no-excuse mail voting as antidotes for the depressing effect inclement weather has on voter turnout and the Republican dividend that accompanies rain and snow on Election Day. We offer and test an explanation for how voters utilize early voting to anticipate and avoid the costs of voting in bad weather. Replicating and extending Gomez et al (2007) analysis through the 2016 election, we confirm the remedial effect in-person early voting and to a lesser degree no-excuse mail voting has on turnout and the Republican advantage when bad weather coincides with Election Day. Our work makes an important contribution to understanding how election laws effect voter participation. We discuss how taking seriously treatment effect heterogeneity both in theoretical and empirical analyses might contribute to our understanding of the effects of election laws on voter participation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Multi-round contest competition determines many important social and economic outcomes such as employment, promotion, political office, as well as singing, debate, and culinary championships. The competitors in such a contest often belong to different groups based on race, ethnicity, and gender. We examine how favouritism in beliefs about ability affects both who wins the contest and the timing of being voted out. The results are tested using novel data from the culinary competition Chopped. We find that female contestants are more likely to be voted out early, but females who survive to the second half of the contest have a good chance to win. These results support an argument of gender bias by the judges. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article considers two overlapping phenomena: the huge popularity of the Australian soap opera Neighbours in Britain during the late 1980s and early 1990s, and the failure of the Labour Party to mount a successful electoral challenge until the leadership of Tony Blair. It argues that Neighbours' appeal—community focussed, friendly, classless, unthreatening, a mixed economy, and in some ways small 'c' conservative—was precisely the platform that Labour needed to convince voters (particularly women and those living in suburbs) that it failed to reach between 1983 and 1992. Neighbours offered an albeit imagined and fictionalised window into Bob Hawke's Australia that many of the British electorate found attractive, but until the Labour party tapped into such support, significant numbers of 'floating voters' would continue to back the Social Democratic Party and, subsequently, John Major's Conservatives. There were generational dynamics at play here—with the 8 in 10 12–15 year olds who watched the show in 1990 unable to vote at earlier elections, but joining the franchise in time for the first Blair landslide of 1997. Neighbours was of course not the only influence on such voters, but it was a meaningful one. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In December 2020, Texas filed a motion to the U.S. Supreme Court claiming that the four battleground states: Pennsylvania, Georgia, Michigan, and Wisconsin did not conduct their 2020 presidential elections in compliance with the Constitution. Texas supported its motion with a statistical analysis purportedly demonstrating that it was highly improbable that Biden had more votes than Trump in the four battleground states. This article points out that Texas’s claim is logically flawed and the analysis submitted violated several fundamental principles of statistics.

The conditions of a highly anticipated election during the COVID-19 pandemic present an opportunity to further understand how voting accessibility influenced voting behavior in the 2020 United States general election. At the time of the election, nonpharmaceutical interventions, such as wearing a facemask, physical distancing, and crowd avoidance, were the primary defenses against contracting and spreading the virus. In response to the pandemic, several states enacted emergency voting laws that extended early voting days, loosened restrictions on acquiring an absentee ballot, and provided accessible ballot drop-off locations to reduce health and safety barriers to voters during the pandemic. This study uses a mixed methods design to investigate the motivating factors of voting behavior among Democrat and Independent voters in the Greater Boston Area in the 2020 general election. Based on data from an original survey of 169 individuals and 56 follow-up interviews conducted in early 2021, we find that the predicted probability of being a convenience voter (voting by mail, early voting, ballot drop box, or dropping their ballot at their polling location) goes from 50 % (p <.001) among those who did not express safety concerns related to voting to 82 % (p <.0001), an increase of 32 %. These findings were further triangulated in follow-up interviews with the survey participants. In our follow-up interviews, we also found that electoral integrity was a concern among both traditional and convenience voters; many individuals made a plan to vote in person, vote early, or drop their ballot off at a polling site or drop box to ensure their vote was counted. More broadly, the implications of this research place importance on state election law and election administration in a time of crisis. We expect that in a future crisis, such as a natural disaster or disease outbreak, convenience voting such as extended early voting options, ballot drop boxes, and relaxed restrictions around absentee voting options, may reduce barriers to voting experienced during uncertain or unsafe conditions and facilitate institutional certainty. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Early voting procedures boost voter participation and have therefore been suggested as institutional remedies for the problem of unequal turnout. Scholars have, however, raised concerns that making voting more convenient may actually lead to a less representative electorate. We contribute to this debate by leveraging large-scale Swedish registry data to analyze persons expecting a child around the time of the election. Our results indicate that politically engaged high-status voters are more likely to use the opportunity to vote in advance when faced with the risk of not being able to vote on election day. Given the large number of obstacles to election-day voting that individuals face throughout life, it is therefore conceivable that efforts to make voting more convenient and less costly for citizens may in the end lead to less representative electorates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article is devoted to identifying the features of the functioning of elections as a democratic institution in a pandemic. Based on the constructivist approach and the method of comparative analysis, the author attempts to conceptualize elections as an institution of trust and to characterize the electoral practices used by European countries in the electoral process. Based on the research of D. Coleman, N. Luhmann, R. Putnam, P. Roseanvallon, P. Shtompka, I. Krastev, F. Fukuyama, D. Gambetto, the author, despite the ambiguity of the concept of “trust”, concludes that it is essential role in the relationship between government and society. Mistrust means the alienation of society from the social sphere, lack of faith in justice, a feeling of uncertainty and a threat emanating from government institutions. Trust creates a moral environment in society that promotes development and effective problem solving. In an atmosphere of trust, various voting options are possible, which are not disputed by citizens, and elections become the most important indicator of this trust. Pandemic restrictions have left a significant imprint on electoral practices; nevertheless, there is an obvious trend towards the active introduction of remote electronic voting, which has not yet reached perfection, but is a strategically priority in the ongoing election campaigns. At the same time, increased requirements are imposed on the safety of the electoral process, its normative regulation, openness and publicity.

While the evidence is clear that 2020 voters shifted away from Election Day voting in favor of vote-by-mail and early voting, we know very little about how health risk versus party polarization around risk assessment influenced how and when to vote. We rely on individual-level observational data in the form of high-quality official voter administrative records from the State of New Mexico to ask how pandemic-related risk factors, especially voter age along with partisanship influenced voter decision-making. To identify causal factors, we use a difference-in-differences design and hazard model that compare 2020 general election and primary voter behavior to 2018 and 2016. We find that age and party were large factors in vote mode decisions in 2020, but not in 2016 or 2018. We consider the implications of our findings on how health risk and partisanship interact to influence decision-making. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The history of the Islamist opposition in Islamic countries dates back to the times when imperialist and colonial activities began to emerge. In the new order which is established as a result of the emergence of independent states, the secular character of the administrations that came to power under the control of the West and artificial borders which are drawn as a result of the imperialist and colonialist policies of the West towards the Islamic geography constitute the main objection point of Islamist opposition groups in many countries of the Islamic world. For this reason, many Islamist opposition groups believed that these Western-led secular governments should be overthrown and replaced by an administration based on sharia. The Iranian Islamic Revolution in Iran in 1979 has been a separate source of motivation for the opposition to secular and laicistic governments in many Muslim countries, especially in Egypt, Pakistan, and Afghanistan. The successful conclusion of the Islamic Revolution in Iran, on the one hand, provided motivation for organizations operating with similar goals; on the other hand, it was influential in the emergence of new theo-political movements that would operate within the framework of the same goals. Undoubtedly, Turkey was one of the countries where the motivation created by the Iranian Islamic Revolution was effective. The dose of Islamist opposition has increased in Turkey and some theo-political movements have emerged. One of these groups was the Turkish Hezbollah. Hezbollah adopted the idea that the secular system in Turkey should be changed and replaced by an administration based on sharia. In this context, they stated that people must not contribute this system by voting because the administration order in Turkey does not comply with the sharia. However, there have been some changes in Hezbollah's method of action and discourse in the process. Between 1990 and 2000, Hezbollah became a group identified with violence in public opinion. After Turkey's Hezbollah announced that it stopped armed actions in 2002, it established an association, which later changed to the Mustazaflar Movement, as part of its demilitarization efforts. This association was shut down in 2010 because it was associated with Hezbollah. Hezbollah became involved in the political arena by founding a party called Hür Dava Partisi (Free Cause Party) in 2012. It is seen that Hezbollah, which rejected the current administrative system in Turkey in the early periods and advised people not to be in this system, changed its attitude in the process. It is seen that Hezbollah, which was against voting in its early days, experienced a transformation in the process by founding a party. Hezbollah, which previously stated that voting was haram, started to take place in the current system with the political structure called the Hür Dava Partisi. This study deals with the political transformation of Turkish Hezbollah in the process. In the study, in which the documentation method was used, the establishment process of Hezbollah and its understanding of politics is explained, and the legalization efforts that started in 2002 and the process leading to the establishment of a political party in 2012 are discussed. As a result of the study, it has been determined that Hezbollah's attitude towards the current political structure has changed in the process. It has been concluded that this transformation experienced by Hezbollah can be evaluated as a moderation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Are more politically knowledgeable registered voters more likely to cast their ballots prior to Election Day when given an option to do so? We argue that individuals with high political knowledge are more likely to take advantage of convenience voting opportunities because they have command over static-general facts, enabling them to make informed choices when voting. Drawing on five Cooperative Congressional Election Study (CCES) pre- and post-election national surveys and an original survey of registered voters in Florida conducted in 2017, we test if political knowledge affects the method of voting. Estimating a series of multinomial logistic regression models with fixed-effects for voters registered in American states that permit convenience voting, and controlling for socio-economic, political, and campaign effects, we find that voters with greater static-general political knowledge are more likely to vote early, and those with low political knowledge are more likely to wait until Election Day to cast their ballot. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]