I just ran across this recently-published paper in PNAS, by Rubin Enikolopov and colleagues, “Field Experiment Estimate of Electoral Fraud in Russian Parliamentary Elections.” Here is the abstract:
Electoral fraud is a widespread phenomenon, especially outside the developed world. Despite abundant qualitative and anecdotal evidence on its existence from around the world, there is very limited quantitative evidence on the extent of electoral fraud. We exploit random assignment of independent observers to 156 of 3,164 polling stations in the city of Moscow to estimate the effect of electoral fraud on the outcome of the Russian parliamentary elections held on December 4, 2011. We estimate the actual share of votes for the incumbent United Russia party to be at least 11 percentage points lower than the official count (36% instead of 47%). Our results suggest that the extent of the fraud was sufficient to have had a substantial impact on the outcome of the elections; they also confirm that the presence of observers is an important factor in ensuring the integrity of the procedure.
As Charles noted in his recent post on the new federal election commission, there is a lot of debate swirling around the commission and what it should focus on. Some additional details have come out recently, in particular some details in this morning’s New York Times story on the commission:
The White House will also name five other people to the commission, aides said, including customer service experts from the private sector and election officials. Advisers said the commission would not propose legislation, but would make broader suggestions of best practices to try and diminish the long lines at polling places. It is expected to spend at least six months studying the voting challenges before making its recommendation.
There has been a lot of commentary about the president’s election commission today, in response to the State of the Union speech. This is a busy teaching day for me, so I can’t put in my full two cents on this one, so I’ll add my ha’penny.
The fact that election administration has attracted a partisan patina understandably should make anyone skeptical about whether a presidential commission can accomplish anything, and especially whether it can propose legislation that will pass Congress.
Nonetheless, I’ve learned over the past several years that having a smart, diverse group of people who care about elections talking about the important issues can only be a good thing. Even if the commission doesn’t get anything passed through Congress, smart, engaged people in the states and localities will be paying attention. Alas, this is what a functioning EAC would do, but it’s not functioning. Why not goose the national conversation this way? This is something the president CAN do.
So long as the commission is focused on issues like best practices and data-driven improvement, in the context of a diverse nation, how could the commission be a bad thing?
The right place to aim disappointment is at the context, not at the effort to do good, despite the context.
In last night’s State of the Union address, President Obama announced the formation of a new election reform commission:
When any American — no matter where they live or what their party — are denied that right because they can’t wait for five or six or seven hours just to cast their ballot, we are betraying our ideals. So…
So, tonight, I’m announcing a nonpartisan commission to improve the voting experience in America. And it definitely needs improvement. I’m asking two long-time experts in the field — who, by the way, recently served as the top attorneys for my campaign and for Governor Romney’s campaign — to lead it. We can fix this. And we will. The American people demand it, and so does our democracy.
(For a full transcript, see the Washington Post.)
Of course, we’ll follow this commission as it does it’s work, and hope that the commission takes a good look at the 2012 pre-election report from the Caltech/MIT Voting Technology Project, “Voting: What Has Changed, What Hasn’t, & What Needs Improvement”, and the VTP’s post-2012 election update.
The Caltech/MIT Voting Technology Project has released a post-2012 election update, identifying three problems that need immediate attention. Here’s a summary from the update:
First, the U.S. EAC and state and local election officials must study the reasons for long lines in November 2012. Expanding early voting may help. Also providing those locations with better-trained staff, sufficient voting materials, and ample voting machines are likely critical to minimizing voter waits in the future.
Second, state and local election officials need to examine their use of provisional ballots. Election officials should study ways to improve the accuracy of registration databases immediately prior to elections, audit their voter registration systems after the election, and work to streamline the provisional balloting process.
Third, federal, state and local election officials must study the disruptions caused by Hurricane Sandy, examine how election officials in the affected states reacted to those disruptions, and develop contingency plans for dealing with similar emergencies in the future. This is not the first widespread disaster to affect elections—Hurricanes Katrina and Rita affected elections in the southeastern U.S., and the 9/11 tragedy disrupted elections in New York City. Election officials should examine their contingency plans, develop strategies for dealing with disasters, and make sure that their laws and regulations allow for emergency balloting procedures.
NPR’s story is here, don’t miss the analysis from MIT colleague Charles Stewart:
Stewart says it’s not at all clear what causes long lines. He thinks better registration systems will help, but he’s not convinced that more early voting will ease the wait on Election Day. That could just as easily be the result of too few places to vote.
“No one can tell you nationwide how many precincts there were, and how many people were manning those precincts, and how many voting machines were at each of those precincts,” he says. “That’s data that’s not going to be released probably until November of this year.”
The Virtual Issue on Election Fraud and Electoral Integrity, recently made available by Political Analysis, will only be available for free download for a short time. A new virtual issue is going to be published soon.
So grab these papers while you still can get them free access!
Hot off the presses — USAID has released a report on electoral security, “Best Practices in Electoral Security: A Guide for Democracy and Governance Programming.” Looks like an interesting read for those interested the security and integrity of elections.
Reports out this morning indicate that the USPS is planning on eliminating Saturday postal delivery.
This has important implications for the increasing tendency of states to expand opportunities for voting by mail. The elimination of Saturday delivery will mean that there will effectively be fewer days for people to receive their ballots pre-election, and for voters to easily return their voted ballots. States may need to make the pre-election voting by mail period longer, to develop opportunities for voters to drop off voted ballots pre-election in a secure and easy way, and to educate voters about the importance of mailing ballots well before deadlines.
I’ve been mucking around in surveys other than my own that document how long voters wait to vote. I found that the Pew Research Center on the People and the Press asked this question in 2004, 2008, and 2012. Unfortunately, the response categories are different from those in the Survey of the Performance of American Elections (SPAE), but the broad trend is the same as I reported at the December Pew Voting in American Conference.
The big trend is that the average line length to vote has been basically unchanged in recent presidential elections. For instance, Pew estimates that 82% of in-person voters waited half an hour or less to vote in 2004, compared to 83% in 2008, and 84% in 2012. So, whatever we think of lines in 2012 — that they were too long, too short, or just right — it’s likely they were that way in 2004 and 2008, too.