Candidate Ethnic Origins and Voter Preferences: Examining Name Discrimination in Local Elections in Britain

Abstract

This article examines the relationship between candidate names as they appear on the ballot paper and voting patterns in British local elections. Specifically, it explores whether some voters favour candidates with British-sounding names over those whose names suggest either European or non-European ethnic origins. Name classification software identifies three categories of candidate: British, other European and non-European. Separate analyses of aggregate voting data are undertaken of multi-member and singlemember electoral districts. Data cover the period 1973-2012, and votes for more than 400,000 candidates are examined. In multi-member districts, after comparing within-party slates and finishing order generally, candidates whose surnames suggest a British ethnic origin perform best, while non-Europeans attract fewer votes. The analysis of single-member districts focuses on a party's vote share after taking into account the pattern of candidate recruitment across electoral cycles. It shows that vote share is adversely affected when British candidates are replaced by those with European and non-European surnames, while the opposite pattern of succession is associated with a boost in votes. It is clear that the outcome of some elections has been determined by the parties' choice of candidates.Ballot-order effects -the relationship between each candidate's position and description on the ballot paper and the number of votes received -have been investigated extensively. They affect candidates in different ways, and have led some countries to introduce measures to remove them. The identification of alphabetic bias, the tendency for candidates to gain an advantage in votes solely by virtue of being placed at or near the top of the ballot paper, prompted the randomization of ballot orders in Australia and some American states, for example.1 This removes alphabetic bias, but sometimes replaces it with positional bias -the candidate placed at the top of the ballot may obtain an advantage over competitors.2 The growing practice of including candidates' photographs on the ballot paper can lead to an association between attractiveness and vote, giving some candidates an advantage over others.3 A third category of ballot effect stems from voters' reactions to names on the ballot paper as information cues about the candidate's gender, ethnic identity and/or religious affiliation. 4 How voters react to name characteristics is a more complex problem to address than alphabetic bias, and finding a workable solution is considerably more difficult to achieve.

Biases at the Ballot Box: How Multiple Forms of Voter Discrimination Impede the Descriptive and Substantive Representation of Ethnic Minority Groups

“…Respondents were also no more likely to select neither candidate when faced with an ethnic minority candidate. Therefore, we have not been able to resolve the paradox in the UK literature between Campbell and Cowley's (2014) experimental null finding and observational studies of ethnic penalties (Stegmaier et al 2013;Fisher et al 2015;Thrasher et al 2017).…”

“…Stegmaier and colleagues (Stegmaier et al 2013), using 2010 general election returns, find that incumbency advantage increased by two percentage points if the challenger was a member of a racial or ethnic minority group. Thrasher et al (2017) find an advantage for local election "candidates whose surnames suggest a British ethnic origin," while those with non-European names had the largest disadvantage.…”

“…Aside from its status as a multi-ethnic democracy, Britain provides a useful setting for this study for two main reasons: (i) ethnic minority candidates stand for all parties (Sobolewska 2013), and (ii) observational evidence suggests electoral discrimination in British elections (Stegmaier et al 2013;Thrasher et al 2017;Fisher et al 2015).…”

Partir con ventaja. Las características de la candidatura presidencial ganadora en América Latina (1993-2017)

“…En tercer lugar, estudios sobre comportamiento electoral que examinan la relación entre las candidaturas y el voto de los electores. En este ámbito, algunos trabajos (Conover y Feldman 1980;Lewis-Beck y Rice 1983;McDermott 2009;Nadeau y Nevitte 2011;Thrasher et al 2017) han puesto el enfoque en las candidaturas y han demostrado que los votantes toman decisiones políticas «haciendo inferencias sobre la base de las características políticas, sociales y demográficas de los/as candidatos/as» (McDermott 2009: 606). El efecto de algunas características de las candidaturas, como el sexo, se limita a las elecciones presidenciales, y se da solo en algunos tipos de votantes (Ono y Burden 2017).…”

“…Algunos trabajos se han centrado en características sociodemográficas concretas de las candidaturas, como la residencia (Lewis-Beck y Rice 1983), la religión (Campbell et al 1960;Castle et al 2017), la etnia (Wolfinger 1965;Sigelman et al 1995;Thrasher et al 2017), el sexo (Plutzer y Zipp 1996; Ono y Burden 2017), la edad (Kenski y Jamieson 2010) o incluso el tono de voz (Banai et al 2017). Otros estudios han optado por una visión integral: Vittorio y Zimbardo (2004) revelan que los electores votan a candidaturas cuyos rasgos se ajustan a la ideología del partido político al que prefieren, aunque también pueden elegir a políticos con rasgos similares a ellos.…”