Strategic ballot removal: an unexplored form of electoral manipulation in hybrid regimes

Abstract

Ballot scores 15/16 on checklist guidelines applicable to paper ballots.

Psychological Peculiarities of Styles of Professional Activity and the Level of Stress among Members of Election Commissions in Parliamentary Elections in Ukraine

“…We agree with the findings of the researchers that one of the ways to improve the electoral process is its technical improvement and automation (Elklit, 1999;Garrett & Jensen, 2011;Kimura, 2015). This will reduce the risk of election manipulation and corruption of officials, the "strategic rejection of falsified" ballots and their incorrect counting, in general, as much as possible limit the influence of the human factor on the electoral process and election results (Friesen, 2019;McAllister & White, 2015).…”

“…Generally incorporated in generic university or vocational institute courses globally, training is usually offered as a specially tailor-made module for polling officials in western countries (Maphunye, 2017). Even then, it rarely covers the severe conditions election officials regularly face, especially in countries with transitional democracies and hybrid regimes (Basiru & Adesina, 2019;Friesen, 2019;Garnett, 2019;Msila & Matjila, 2017;van Ham & Lindberg, 2015).…”

“…In the last decades, people's activity in political life is an important aspect of their social interests, which has attracted the particular attention of researchers (Cawvey et al, 2017;Friesen, 2019;James, 2020;Laanela, 2017). Modern democracy is determined by the nature of the organization of the electoral process: regular, well-organized elections are a prerequisite for the existence of the democratic political system (Clark & James, 2017;Elklit, 1999;Lijphart, 2012;Msila & Matjila, 2017;Pastor, 1999;Shevel, 2015).…”

Hidden in plain sight? Irregularities on statutory forms and electoral fraud

“…(Indeed, although our results suggest no systematic relationship between irregularities and outcomes, we cannot absolutely rule out the possibility that some individual forms were manipulated with the intent to defraud.) Just as we cannot rule out the possibility that election observation may have generate geographic spillovers, we cannot rule out the possibility that observation may have generated spillovers in how results were manipulated-a well-documented finding in other contexts (e.g., Callen and Long 2015;Friesen 2019). Greater scrutiny of these relationships-including through methods like those we develop here-may help improve the production of election results and, in the long run, build trust in the electoral process.…”