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

Gingerich, Daniel W.

doi:10.1111/ajps.12438

Cited by 10 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 22 publications

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“…In fact, the AB did disenfranchise illiterate voters. In a municipal-level analysis of voting returns from the period, Gingerich (2019) shows that the introduction of the AB in federal deputy elections led to a vertiginous increase in wasted votes, particularly in areas of high illiteracy. The complexity of voting with the AB helps explain this outcome.…”

Section: Historical Backgroundmentioning

confidence: 99%

Vote Secrecy With Diverse Voters

Gingerich

Medeiros

2019

Comparative Political Studies

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Why would incumbent politicians adopt the secret ballot when doing so weakens the advantages of incumbency? Why is the secret ballot considered a democratizing reform in some settings, whereas in others it is associated with democratic backsliding? We provide theory and empirics to address these questions. Our starting point is the observation that the secret ballot had two consequences. It reduced the capacity to monitor the vote, thereby dampening the efficacy of clientelism. Yet, depending on literacy and electoral rules, it could also narrow political participation. Recognizing this, we endogenize politicians’ preferences over the secret ballot, concentrating on the role of their personal and constituency characteristics. Legislative roll call voting data from Brazil’s Second Republic (1945-1964) is used to test our framework. Consistent with expectations, the level of literacy of legislators’ supporters and the strength of their local ties strongly influenced the choice to adopt the secret ballot.

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Section: Historical Backgroundmentioning

confidence: 99%

Vote Secrecy With Diverse Voters

Gingerich

Medeiros

2019

Comparative Political Studies

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“…Only municipalities with zero spending in both elections had an inflation-adjusted change in spending of zero. 22 SeeGingerich (2019) andGingerich and Medeiros (2020) for empirical evidence on this point.…”

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confidence: 99%

Buying Power: Electoral Strategy before the Secret Vote

Gingerich

2020

Am Polit Sci Rev

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Research on clientelism emphasizes the use of brokers to mobilize voters. To utilize these agents efficiently, politicians must learn about brokers’ relative abilities and allocate scarce resources accordingly. Drawing upon a hand-coded dataset based on the archives of Gustavo Capanema, a powerful mid-twentieth-century congressman from Minas Gerais, Brazil, this paper offers the first direct evidence of such learning dynamics. The analysis concentrates on Brazil’s pre-secret ballot era, a time when measuring broker performance was particularly straightforward. Consistent with theories of political learning, the data demonstrate that resource flows to local machines were contingent on the deviation between actual and expected votes received in previous elections. Moreover, given politicians’ ability to discern mobilization capacity, payments to brokers were highly effective in bringing out the vote.

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“…Eleitores eram "feitos" por seus partidos ou, numa definição ostensiva, "fazer eleitores" diz respeito à prática de mobilizar eleitores, alistando-os, levando-os para votar e entregando aos mesmos as chamadas cédulas partidárias. É importante frisar que somente em 1955 passou a existir algum tipo de cédula oficial para o cargo de presidente da República -outros cargos, como eleições proporcionais em cidades numerosas, apenas em 1958 -, entregue para ser preenchida pelo eleitor no momento do voto (GINGERICH, 2019). No momento aqui analisado, partidos e políticos precisavam empenhar recursos na mobilização de eleitores, que não votariam se não fossem alistados e recebessem a cédula impressa pelo partido -como mostra o registro feito poucos anos depois, com entrevistas de cabos políticos locais feito por Orlando de Carvalho em Minas Gerais (CARVALHO, 1956) Neste trabalho, é argumentado que Adhemar venceu principalmente por ter votos na capital e na cidade de Santos, os principais centros urbanos da época.…”

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A máquina adhemarista: democracia e práticas eleitorais no começo da Terceira República em São Paulo (1947 - 1950)

Amador

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This thesis aims to analyze the electoral practices of São Paulo's politicians at the beginning of the Third Brazilian Republic (1946Republic ( -1964, having as a landmark the first term of Adhemar de Barros, from the PSP, as governor. The research has as a theoretical reference the new approaches regarding the period, which considers the 19 years between the election of Eurico Gaspar Dutra in December 1945 and the military coup of 1964 as the country's first democratic experience, without any election options competitive for most political positions, especially that of President of the Republic. The look at the case of São Paulo is justified by two factors: first, São Paulo in 1947 did not elect a politician from the country's biggest parties (UDN and PSD), like other states. In this, both were defeated by a politician and a party of regional expression that, from São Paulo, projected itself nationally. The second point is that the case of Adhemar de Barros is not perfectly explained either by the thesis of populismwhich highlights the direct relationship of the politician with his electorate -nor by the practice of "making voters"in which parties enlist, gather and maintain their voters, even taking care of and taking them to the polling place. This research, in turn, highlights the network of actors, especially the political leaders from the countryside, who orbited around the governor and his party and began to compose his political machine after the 1947 election and access to state resources. For this, the research makes use of a bibliographic review about the period, as well as about the figure of the local political leader, an analysis of the data related to the elections of the time, made available by the Electoral Bulletins of the São Paulo's TRE and a documentary analysis of the newspapers of the time, which narrate the comings and goings of agreements between the parties of the Third Republic. Finally, the work wants to contribute to the debate on democratization.

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

Cited by 10 publications

References 22 publications

Vote Secrecy With Diverse Voters

Vote Secrecy With Diverse Voters

Buying Power: Electoral Strategy before the Secret Vote

A máquina adhemarista: democracia e práticas eleitorais no começo da Terceira República em São Paulo (1947 - 1950)

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