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What are the opinions of American registered voters about election fraud and types of election fraud as we head into the final stages of the 2024 Presidential election? In this paper we use data from an online national survey of 2,211 U.S. registered voters interviewed between June 26 - July 3, 2024. Respondents were asked how common they thought that ten different types of election fraud might be in the U.S. In our analysis, we show that substantial proportions of U.S. registered voters believe that these types of election fraud are common. Our multivariate analysis shows that partisanship correlates strongly with endorsement of types of election fraud, with Republicans consistently more likely to state that types of election fraud are common, even when we control for a wide variety of other factors. We also find that conspiratorial thinking is strongly correlated with belief in the occurrence of types of election fraud, even when we control for partisanship. Our results reported in this paper provide important data regarding how American registered voters perceive the prevalence of types of election fraud, just months before the 2024 Presidential election. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Are partisans more likely to endorse political violence when politicians accuse their rivals of election improprieties? I theorize that for Republican partisans in the United States, the answer to this question is yes. Republican partisans are primed to believe allegations of cheating by Democrats and view election improprieties through the lens of racial and xenophobic resentments. Allegations of Democratic election fraud prompt them to eschew nonviolent norms of political behavior and endorse political violence. I test these propositions using an original, online survey experiment involving 140 self-identified Republican subjects. I find that exposure to allegations by politicians that Democrats engage in election fraud prompts Republican partisans to increase their support for political violence. Furthermore, using mediation tests, I find that exposing Republicans to allegations of electoral fraud by Democrats reduces their trust of people of different races and religions which, in turn, increases their support for political violence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Does election fraud erode support for dictators? An original survey experiment from Russia following the 2020 vote on constitutional amendments reveals three key findings. First, regime supporters and opponents differ significantly in their baseline beliefs about election fairness. While regime opponents are already aware of fraud, supporters expect relatively fair elections. Consequently, only regime supporters revise their election beliefs when exposed to fraud information. Second, fraud revelations reduce regime legitimacy beliefs, but only among the regime's political base. In contrast, regime opponents already perceive the regime as illegitimate at the baseline. Third, the experiment shows minimal, if any, effects on attitudes toward Putin. While fraud revelations cause regime supporters to adjust their views on the regime, their opinions about Putin remain largely unaffected. The findings imply that dictators can maintain popular support among their political base while manipulating elections, posing questions about the potential of fraud to undermine regime stability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives: We investigate potential determinants of voter fraud perceptions and support for voter photo identification laws among British voters. Methods: Using data from an original nationally representative survey of British voters, we analyze how respondents' partisanship, ideology, immigration views, and demographic factors influence perceptions of voter fraud and support for voter identification. Findings: The analysis shows that respondents' partisanship and immigration views are the primary factors in explaining voter fraud perceptions. Ideologically conservative respondents exhibit greater support for voter photo identification laws, irrespective of partisanship. Additionally, our results show that while men and women hold similar beliefs about the prevalence and impact of voter fraud, women are significantly less supportive of voter photo identification laws than men. Conclusion: The study demonstrates that political partisanship and immigration views play a crucial role in shaping perceptions of voter fraud and support for voter photo identification laws in the United Kingdom. Furthermore, gender differences also significantly influence support for these laws, with women being less supportive than men. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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What are the opinions of American registered voters about election fraud and types of election fraud as we head into the final stages of the 2024 Presidential election? In this paper we use data from an online national survey of 2,211 U.S. registered voters interviewed between June 26 - July 3, 2024. Respondents were asked how common they thought that ten different types of election fraud might be in the U.S. In our analysis, we show that substantial proportions of U.S. registered voters believe that these types of election fraud are common. Our multivariate analysis shows that partisanship correlates strongly with endorsement of types of election fraud, with Republicans consistently more likely to state that types of election fraud are common, even when we control for a wide variety of other factors. We also find that conspiratorial thinking is strongly correlated with belief in the occurrence of types of election fraud, even when we control for partisanship. Our results reported in this paper provide important data regarding how American registered voters perceive the prevalence of types of election fraud, just months before the 2024 Presidential election.

This experimental investigation explores the influence of election fraud fact-checking and cognitive processing styles on participants' confidence in the 2020 U.S. presidential election's legitimacy and characterizations of the January Sixth Capitol Hill Attack. The results indicate fact-checking, accuracy motivated reasoning, and systematic processing exerted positive effects on participants' legitimacy levels, especially among Republicans. We also found that participants' systematic processing, affiliation with the Democratic Party, and negative attitudes toward Donald Trump were associated with their characterizations of the January Sixth Capitol Hill Attack as violent and extreme. Overall, these results support both motivated reasoning and dual process models, but partisan motivated reasoning exerted the greatest effects. Further, these findings suggest Republican and pro-Trump participants who rely on heuristic processing may find violent, extra-political actions acceptable means of attempting to achieve their goals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Indonesia’s Election Management Bodies (EMBs), constitutionally mandated to manage legislative and presidential elections, face substantial risks, including accidents and fatalities. However, their social security rights are often overshadowed by the focus on civil servants and private-sector workers. This study, employing normative legal research, urges the need for state protection of EMBs’ social security rights, drawing on secondary data sources. EMBs should receive comprehensive work-related accident benefits, death benefit programs, and old-age protection schemes from the Workers Social Security Agency (BPJS Ketenagakerjaan). The legal basis for these social security rights can be found in several legislative provisions, including the Indonesian 1945 Constitution, the National Social Security System Law, and other related regulations. Recognizing EMBs as state-serving workers is a crucial step in safeguarding their social security rights. This recognition is not merely a matter of legal interpretation; it is a necessity to ensure a fair and secure electoral environment. By ensuring that EMBs are accorded the same rights and protections as other workers, the state can create a more equitable electoral process and reinforce the integrity of its democratic institutions.

As our nation struggles to make sense of the pathologies of conspiracy thinking and hyper-polarization in our body politics, this study investigates why some members of the House GOP caucus used Twitter to promote conspiracy theories surrounding the 2020 election. Our study first examines the predictors of conspiracy theory tweeting, and second, whether this messaging was related to voting for or against the certification of presidential election results in Arizona and Pennsylvania on January 6th. Our results suggest President Trump's election performance in 2020, conspiratorial tweeting, and freshman status of House members were the driving factors of voting behavior on January 6th. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The fake news that circulated on social media in 2020 and 2022 affected the voters of the South Korean general and presidential elections, respectively. The political controversy, centered on the election fraud that occurred in both the elections, received significant attention from the society. This study emphasizes the Twitter discourse and compares the formation and distribution of election fraud. We conduct semantic social network analysis and structural topic modeling (STM) to represent topics and relationships among the emerging themes using Twitter texts related to both elections. Results demonstrate that discourses on the same political issue exhibited unique contents and structures, as information is formed and distributed differently depending on the type of election in South Korea. Furthermore, this study illustrates the process and analysis of large-scale text data collected from Twitter. It also includes new methods, such as political ideology, for considering an analytical dimension. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Traditional news outlets, such as newspapers and television, are no longer major sources of news. These media channels have been replaced by social platforms, which have increased in value as information distributors. This change in communication is an underlying reason for the election fraud controversies that occurred in the United States and South Korea, which hold high standards of democracy, during similar periods. This study investigates a model for sharing political disputes over social networks, especially Twitter, and illustrates the influence of political polarization. This study examines Twitter content around the presidential elections in the United States and South Korea in 2020 and 2022, respectively. It applies semantic network analysis and structural topic modeling to describe and compare the dynamics of online discourse on the issue of election fraud. The results show that online spaces such as Twitter serve as public spheres for discussion among active political participants. Social networks are key settings for forming and spreading election fraud controversies in the United States and South Korea, with differences in content. In addition, the study applies large-volume text data and new analytical methods such as the structural topic model to examine the in-depth relationships among political issues in cyberspace. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

International election observation has been scrutinized over the past two decades by scholars trying to explain its aim, scope, and consequences. As it is now a standard practice in democratizing countries, scholarly literature has almost reached a consensus on the ability of observers to deter election-day fraud, one of the most positive unintended consequences of election observation. Using data from the 2004 Ukraine presidential election, this article extends our knowledge through a natural experiment on polling station-level election results. I will show that observation during counting does not have a stronger effect than observation during opening and/or polling. Results support previous studies showing the usefulness of election observation in reducing election-day fraud but add an important finding that deserves further scholarly attention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The electoral legal framework in Indonesia is designed to be highly complex, which causes several problems. One of them is in the realm of election offenses, considering the establishment of the settlement mechanism is complicated due to the very short time limit. This research aims to identify, examine, study, and discover many regulatory problems that will undoubtedly help law enforcers to settle election offenses in the future. This research falls under the category of normative legal research prioritizing the use of secondary data, including primary, secondary, and tertiary legal materials. Based on the data used, the documentation study/library study technique with tools in the form of written materials as described was used and qualitatively analyzed. The research finding showed that the specialization of the regulation in the form of speedy trial or fast-track judicial process is the root of the problem in the settlement of election offenses, considering the existing problems cannot be separated from it.

Traditional news outlets, such as newspapers and television, are no longer major sources of news. These media channels have been replaced by social platforms, which have increased in value as information distributors. This change in communication is an underlying reason for the election fraud controversies that occurred in the United States and South Korea, which hold high standards of democracy, during similar periods. This study investigates a model for sharing political disputes over social networks, especially Twitter, and illustrates the influence of political polarization. This study examines Twitter content around the presidential elections in the United States and South Korea in 2020 and 2022, respectively. It applies semantic network analysis and structural topic modeling to describe and compare the dynamics of online discourse on the issue of election fraud. The results show that online spaces such as Twitter serve as public spheres for discussion among active political participants. Social networks are key settings for forming and spreading election fraud controversies in the United States and South Korea, with differences in content. In addition, the study applies large-volume text data and new analytical methods such as the structural topic model to examine the in-depth relationships among political issues in cyberspace.

Electoral integrity is one of the principle conditions of free political competition among parties and candidates. The electoral processes must be transparent and controllable in all its aspects, so that voters can trust the results of the elections. Representatives of every democratic society must therefore minimize such acts that can lead to questioning the vote and the results of the elections. The main aim of our article is to analyze the various types of electoral malpractice and fraud that occur at the polling stations. Based on quantitative and qualitative research, we have created a set of issues that can be identified in the process of election administration at the level of electoral districts. Part of the article is also a set of proposals which are amendments to legal and subordinate standards and will lead to a higher electoral integrity in the Czech Republic.

This research argues that implementing the electronic voting (e-voting) system in Indonesia is urged following the nation's first-ever 2019 simultaneous elections, which cost a deadly price of 527 election official lives of reported extreme fatigue during and after the event. Billed as "the world's most complex election", it has reached a consensus that the current manual election system, in which five different paper-based elections are voted at a time, has to be changed. Not to mention that the long-time gap between the voting day and the result announcement may create an opportunity for election fraud. This is evidenced by loads of electoral dispute lawsuits from the previous election brought to the Constitutional Court of Indonesia accused the others of cheating. This research stresses that despite the controversies of whether Indonesia, an archipelagic country with more than 17 thousand islands and 267 million people, is ready for e-voting. Whether the application of technology is an appropriate response to the election problems? E-voting is desired as a long-term solution and intends to solve many issues such as speeding the counting of ballots, reducing the cost of elections, providing accessibility for disabled voters, and increasing overall voter turnout.

After losing the 2020 presidential election, Donald Trump publicly asserted that the election was rigged due to voter fraud, and many voters also endorsed this conspiracy theory. This article examines American voters’ belief in election fraud during the 2022 midterm elections, with a particular focus on (1) the propensity of Democrats versus Republicans to believe in voter fraud and (2) the potential for voters to hide their endorsement of such conspiracy theory. For these purposes, we conducted a post-election online public opinion survey in which we asked respondents’ beliefs in voter fraud using both a direct question and a preregistered list experiment. Analysis of the survey data revealed that Republican respondents were far more likely than their Democratic counterparts to believe that election fraud influenced the election outcomes. We also found that the percentage of respondents believing in election fraud was significantly higher when estimated using the direct question method than when using the list experiment, which at least suggests that voters do not conceal their beliefs regarding election fraud out of social desirability concerns. We discuss the implications of this research for the broader literature on American political behavior and public opinion about conspiracy theories. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the 2000s Russian elections have become increasingly unfree and unfair, characterized by suppression of electoral competition, rising levels of administrative interference and drastic growth of electoral frauds. In this paper I propose that the pattern of fraudulent elections in Russia can be explained by combining an idea about federalism with a game-theoretic model of the relationship between the Kremlin and a single regional governor. Specifically, election fraud becomes a basic signaling mechanism of regional bosses' loyalty and of their ability to control the administrative resources to the Kremlin's benefit. If electoral signaling occurs, data manipulation is most likely to take place with 0s and 5s in the last digit of rounded percentages of turnout and electoral support, which is the easiest and most readily detected way to report basic information to superiors. Based on the Russian electoral and financial data for 2000-2018, my analysis shows strong evidence of election fraud associated with the post-electoral interbudgetary transfers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

International election observation has become a standard practice in democratizing countries. Doubts have been cast on the ability of electoral observers to accurately judge the freedom and fairness of an electoral process, and the scholarly literature has still not reached a consensus on the unintended consequences of election observation. This article empirically tests the hypothesis that observers can deter election-day fraud through a natural experiment on polling-station-level election results. Using data from the Ukraine 2004 presidential election, it will show that OSCE/ODIHR observation has both immediate and lasting effect on domestic political actors' behavior. Results do support the usefulness of election observation in reducing election-day fraud. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Electoral integrity is one of the principle conditions of free political competition among parties and candidates. The electoral processes must be transparent and controllable in all its aspects, so that voters can trust the results of the elections. Representatives of every democratic society must therefore minimize such acts that can lead to questioning the vote and the results of the elections. The main aim of our article is to analyze the various types of electoral malpractice and fraud that occur at the polling stations. Based on quantitative and qualitative research, we have created a set of issues that can be identified in the process of election administration at the level of electoral districts. Part of the article is also a set of proposals which are amendments to legal and subordinate standards and will lead to a higher electoral integrity in the Czech Republic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Dataset of Historical Elections in Catalonia covers the most detailed information available for elections that took place in Catalonia during the period 1890–1923. It describes all the specificities of a unique dataset encompassing census tract electoral returns, together with candidate-level data and GIS information. This note presents the context of the electoral data by describing the electoral system and political characteristics of Catalonia and Spain for the period of interest. This dataset expands information regarding electoral data in Catalonia for the period, which until now was only available at the electoral district level. Micro-level electoral data has been collected from multiple different sources ranging from official gazettes, original electoral tallies preserved in a wide range of archives, and secondary sources. This note descriptively presents the data to show its reuse potential for a large array of social scientists interested in historical, political, economic, or demographic processes that took place at the early 20th century. This new dataset has a large potential for future social science research on electoral behavior or party system formation and can be employed to better understand how social processes influenced politics and vice versa.

Post-election violence is a common form of conflict, but its underlying mechanisms are not well understood. Using data from the 2007 Philippine mayoral elections, this paper provides evidence that post-election violence is particularly intense after narrow victories by incumbents. Using a density test, the study shows that incumbents were substantially more likely to win narrow victories than their challengers, a pattern consistent with electoral manipulation. There is no evidence that the increase in post-election violence is related to the incumbents' political platform or their performance in past elections. These results provide support for the notion that post-election violence is triggered by election fraud or by the failure of democratic ways of removing unpopular incumbents from office. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Why are some elections contested with social unrest and protest – sometimes violent – while others pass with little conflict? We focus our study on two types of election, each of which is defined with respect to different types of fraud: "unfree elections," or those in which elites manipulate electoral laws and institutions, and "unfair elections," or those in which elites manipulate votes and voters during the campaign. Unfree elections are not correlated with conflict events because the effects of electoral law are felt diffusely and manipulated electoral law is a show of elite strength. Unfair elections, by contrast, provide a highly visible focal point that allows the opposition to mobilize while simultaneously signaling elite weakness. Finally, citizens form expectations about freeness and fairness over time, engaging in conflict behavior when they perceive a deterioration in electoral fairness. We test these expectations on a sample of African, Central American, and Caribbean states during the period 1990–2011. Our findings identify those types of election fraud most likely to correlate with election-related conflict and violence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• We explore if fair elections enhance government legitimacy in fragile states. • We randomize a fraud-reducing technology in 'Afghanistan's 2010 election. • We match the experimental sample with post-election household survey data. • Improvements of elections' procedural fairness bolsters attitudes toward the state. Elections can enhance state legitimacy. One way is by improving citizens' attitudes toward government, thereby increasing their willingness to comply with rules and regulations. We investigate whether reducing fraud in elections improves attitudes toward government in a fragile state. A large, randomly assigned fraud-reducing intervention in Afghan elections leads to improvement in two indices, one measuring attitudes toward their government, and another measuring stated willingness to comply with governance. Thus, reducing electoral fraud may offer a practical, cost-effective method of enhancing governance in a fragile state. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Why do fraudulent elections encourage protesting? Scholars suggest that information about fraud shapes individuals' beliefs and propensity to protest. Yet these accounts neglect the complexity of opinion formation and have not been tested at the individual level. We distinguish between the mobilizing effects of actual incidents of election fraud and individuals' subjective perceptions of fraud. While rational updating models would imply that both measures similarly affect mobilization, we argue that subjective fraud perceptions are more consistent predictors of protesting, also being shaped by attitudes, information, and community networks. Our empirical analysis uses geo-referenced individual-level data on fraud events, fraud perception, and protesting from the 2007 Nigerian elections. Our analysis yields two main findings: proximity to reported fraud has no effect on protesting and citizens perceiving elections as fraudulent are consistently more likely to protest, and more so if embedded in community networks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How do human rights violations affect post-election protest? Until recently, post-election protests have been explained primarily by election-related factors such as the level of manipulation and the quality of electoral institutions. We argue that there are three dimensions along which human rights violations influence post-election protest: (1) the physical cost to protesters, (2) the ability to connect the violation to an election outcome, and (3) the ability to connect the repressive action to the government. Using this framework, we identify political imprisonment as the physical integrity right violation most likely to increase the probability of post-election protest. We test our hypotheses empirically with data on all national-level elections in the world between 1982 and 2012. We find that political imprisonment, a violation easily connected to government action and election outcomes, and less costly physically than other physical integrity rights violations, increases the probability of post-election protest. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]