Deterring or Displacing Electoral Irregularities? Spillover Effects of Observers in a Randomized Field Experiment in Ghana

Abstract

This article studies the effect of domestic observers deployed to reduce irregularities in voter registration in a new democracy, and in particular, the response of political parties' agents to these observers. Because political parties operate over large areas and party agents may relocate away from observed registration centers, observers may displace rather than deter irregularities. We design and implement a large-scale two-level randomized field experiment in Ghana in 2008 taking into account these spillovers and find evidence for substantial irregularities: the registration increase is smaller in constituencies with observers; within these constituencies with observers, the increase is about one-sixth smaller on average in electoral areas with observers than in those without; but some of the deterred registrations appear to be displaced to nearby electoral areas. The finding of positive spillovers has implications for the measurement of electoral irregularities or analysis of data collected by observers.

Fabricating votes for Putin: new tests of fraud and electoral manipulations from Russia

“…Researchers have therefore pointed to limited specificity of last-digit tests as a forensic tool because last-digit tests target a specific type of fraud mostly consisting of the writing in of made-up numbers on precinct return sheets and may not detect cases of forced voting, multiple voting, and ballot stuffing (Enikolopov, Korovkin et al 2013). Furthermore, a new generation of fraud literature is beginning to systematically analyse not just whether a particular fraud type is perpetrated, but whether it occurs in conjunction with, or in lieu of, other types of irregularities (Beaulieu and Hyde 2009;Ichino and Schuendeln 2012;Simpser 2013;Simpser and Donno 2012;Sjoberg 2014). Research into the "menu[s] of manipulation" (Schedler 2002) conventionally distinguishes between pre-electoral manipulations and election-day fraud.…”

Field experiment estimate of electoral fraud in Russian parliamentary elections

“…Second, the assignment of observers to polling stations was kept secret until the last moment, and was unknown not only to the government officials but also to observers themselves. As a result, people responsible for fraud were not able to refocus their operation, as was the case in Ghana in 2008 (10). Third, our experiment covered the whole city of Moscow.…”

“…Most existing studies establish the presence of the fraud and its correlates but do not estimate the extent of the fraud. In the absence of experimental evidence, the studies need to either make strong assumptions about underlying distributions of voters' preferences (7,8), focus on voting registration rather than actual voting results (9,10), assume the absence of unobserved heterogeneity between precincts (11,12), or use disputed elections to proxy for the presence of electoral fraud (13).…”

Institutional Corruption and Election Fraud: Evidence from a Field Experiment in Afghanistan

“…Third, we examine the determinants of equilibrium patterns of corruption (Shleifer and Vishny 1993;Cadot 1987;Rose-Ackerman 1975;Svensson 2003), focusing on the role of candidate connections. Last, our experiment relates to the growing body of experimental and quasi-experimental assessments of initiatives to improve elections (Aker, Collier, and Vicente 2013;Fujiwara 2013;Hyde 2007;Ichino and Schündeln 2012). Our project also draws direct inspiration from work in development economics on efforts to improve transparency and accountability (Niehaus et al 2013;Duflo, Hanna, and Ryan 2012;Di Tella and Schargrodsky 2003;Ferraz and Finan 2008;Olken 2007;Yang 2008).…”