Voter Awareness Research Articles

Werbalizacja konceptu „władza” we współczesnym rosyjskim dyskursie politycznym

The article is devoted to the analysis of the concept of “power” characteristic for Russian political discourse, verbalized in electoral programs of the largest political parties and inaugural speeches of Russian presidents. The realization of this concept of “power” is served by various lexical units (neutral and related to emotional connotations). Various characteristics of the concept are updated in the awareness of voters. The attention is drawn to the fact that terms causing negative connotations are very rare. The characteristic feature of the verbalization of the analyzed concept in inaugural speeches is the lack of emphasis on the president’s power, and only his duties.

The cyclicality of government foreign-aid expenditure: voter awareness in \u201cgood\u201d times and in \u201cbad\u201d

While it has been argued that the cyclicality of government spending likely depends on the intensities of political pressure to increase expenditure, in economic upturns and downturns, it is important to explore the determinants of changes in the strengths of those pressures. This paper is the first (to our knowledge) to focus on the relevance of systematic changes in voter awareness of government spending. Predictions of the impact of changes in awareness are tested with reference to 23 OECD donor countries’ foreign aid expenditures over the 1999–2015 period. The evidence offers insights into the discretion governments exercise when “fiscal illusion” increases and into the policy implications of systematic changes in voter awareness (in “good” times and in “bad”).

Models of Voters and Politicians in a Digital Society under Uncertainty

The paper considered 3 models of decision-making about voting for or against a politician in a digital society. These models correspond to different levels of voter awareness with random interference. In 1st model the decision making problem is solved for an experienced voter who knows the Bayesian characteristics of interference. In 2nd model a less experienced voter makes decisions using the recommendations of experts. To determine the optimal parameter of the decision rule, a stochastic approximation is proposed. In 3rd model asymmetric awareness of voter and politician about sociopolitical potential is considered. In this case, an unscrupulous politician may understate the socio-political indicator in order to maximize own goal function. That shifts an estimation of decision rule parameter. The voter is considered as apprentice using the recommendations of the mentor (i.e. expert not aware of that potential) for estimation and voting under uncertainty caused by both random interference and politician unwanted activity. Apprentice’s estimation and voting procedures constitute the voting mechanism. The set of politician choices has been determined, at which the maximum of his goal function is achieved with this voting mechanism. Sufficient conditions are proved for the synthesis of the optimal voting mechanism, in which politician chooses the socio-political indicator equal to the potential. So the optimal parameter of the decision rule is determined. Obtained results are illustrated by the example of a union of regional states governed by politicians elected by local societies.

The Social Media Use for Presidential Candidates Campaign and Political Awareness of Young Voters in Indonesia

The Social Media Use for Presidential Candidates Campaign and Political Awareness of Young Voters in Indonesia

A Proposal to Select Illinois Appellate and Supreme Court Justices

Many scholars and court-reform advocates have argued for moving from the election of judges in Illinois to a merit-selection system. The arguments advanced have included that it is unseemly for judges to run for election and ask for and that outside money has infiltrated judicial elections and has diverted the public's attention from local issues to national issues that may not concern many citizens. This paper takes the debate in a different direction and looks at voter awareness and understanding of the job qualifications and duties of the justices on Illinois’ intermediate and highest appeals courts. The authors’ thesis is that voters either are so uninformed or have been so misled about what Illinois appellate and supreme court justices do that the voters are not in the best position to select justices to the two reviewing courts. To support their analysis, the authors conducted a survey of Illinois registered voters to determine exactly what they know about the qualifications and job duties of Illinois' highest two courts.

Evolution of a framework of co-creation in political marketing: select cases

Co-creation is a new paradigm that has captured the attention of management researchers and practitioners worldwide. Through this paper we attempt to understand the relationship between political marketing and co-creation and how it is bringing the transformation in political system through engaging the citizen at various levels. We have started with the literature review on co-creation and political marketing. Then we have identified the levels of co-creation in political marketing through literature review. We have followed the inductive case study approach to examine the phenomenon of co-creation in political scenarios where it was not used as a conscious political marketing tool. However, due to intense political situation, fewer political organization and leaders have understood the changing political climate and realized the increasing role of voters and thus involved voters at various level of decision making and product development which results in increased awareness and engagement of voters with that political party at that point of time. Based on this, we have selected three case studies and through within case and cross case analysis we have proposed the framework of political co-creation. This framework represents three categories of factors that indicate the different stages of co-creation in political system. First is the Co-creation indicating factors which include social dissatisfaction and local level CSO integration. Second group of factors is Co-creation process factors which include active actors and knowledge sharing and lastly Post co-creation factors which include aware citizen, engaged voters and proactive political system.

An Independent Assessment of the Procedural Components of the Estonian Internet Voting System

The I-Voting system that was designed and implemented in Estonia in 2005 is the first Internet voting system to have been adopted anywhere in the world. Since its inception, it has been met with both praise and scrutiny. Concerns include in-person election observations, code reviews, and adversarial testing on system components. As a result of these concerns, some parties have concluded that there are various ways in which insider threats and sophisticated external attacks could compromise the system’s integrity and thus the voting process. This paper examines the procedural components of the I-Voting system, with an emphasis on the controls related to procedural security mechanisms, high-level operational security aspects, and system transparency measures. The methodological approach is based on both primary and secondary data sources, including interviews with key Estonian election personnel, in order to determine the extent to which the present controls mitigate the security risks faced by the system. This study makes three main arguments. First, we found procedural controls to be fundamentally important to the design of the I-Voting system. While these mechanisms go a long way toward preventing cyberattacks, problems in the system still exist. For instance, some security situations appear to be addressed in informal ways which rely heavily on the knowledge, experience, and professional relationships between officials. Second, in terms of operational controls, we were generally impressed by the state of the controls adopted, particularly the incident handling processes during elections, as well as checks and investigations during and after elections. Our main concern regarding resilience is the increasing potential for more highly sophisticated attacks. As time progresses, attackers will naturally become stronger, and the system will have to adapt in order to accommodate this evolution. Third, the system’s transparency measures have had a noteworthy impact on building confidence and trust in the I-Voting system, both locally and internationally. Challenges still exist, however, especially pertaining to the difficulty in running voter awareness campaigns, as well as increasing voter usage of transparency measures.

Electoral Politics in Taiwan: 2008–2012

This paper conducts an analysis of the implementation of the new electoral system (single-district, two-votes system) in practice in 2008. It is focused on the research of two aspects: first, the voter’s awareness of the new electoral system; second, the impact of the new electoral system on the political party system. In the research methods, this article combines the analysis of an individual survey data and information on the election results, trying to find an answer to the question about Taiwan’s voters knowledge of the electoral system situation, the factors that affect the knowledge of the electoral system, as well as the issues of the new electoral system’s impact on the change and development of the political party system. The research has found out that: Taiwan’s voter awareness of the current electoral system is not high. The further research into the relations between the knowledge of the electoral system and the voting choice, as well as the control of other possible factors of influence, showed that the voters who have a more correct and clear understanding of the electoral system have the tendency to vote for small parties.From the results of the general information, the practice of the electoral system indeed led to the decline in pluralistic views. The number of effective parties in the parliament has significantly decreased to that one before restructuring. The new electoral system has made survival difficult for small parties, while the rate of the wasted vote in the regional constituency increased dramatically, making it more difficult to represent pluralistic views.These possible problems caused by the new electoral system, also triggered reactions and initiatives among the domestic public concerning the reform of the electoral system in 2015.

The Impact of the Electronic Campaign by the Political Parties on the Voters

Introduction: With the passage of time and advancement in technology, the campaigning techniques are also pragmatically changes i.e. electronic media campaigning, etc. So our study is to unearth, “The impact of the electronic campaign by the political parties on the voters”. The research is expected to answer the important question: Is the electronic campaign help political parties to influence the voters or not?Research Methodology: This study will analyze primary data with a sample of 200. We have collected through simple random sample design. To analyze the data, we have used descriptive statistics, including mean, standard deviation, skewness, kurtosis, correlation, regression, factor analysis, One-sample t-test.Finding: Our finding in the study is that the electronic campaigning is impacting the behavior of voters, the awareness of voters regarding the political parties by the electronic campaign. Our study reveals the perception of youths toward the electronic campaign and that the electronic campaign is providing the wide coverage as compare to traditional campaigning techniques.Originality: “The impact of the electronic campaign by the political parties on the voters” is an original work and covers the topic which is required for the welfare of the society.

Party Promises, Voter Understanding, and Mandate Responsiveness inEastEuropean Politics

The literature on reform policy fulfillment after the collapse of Communism identifies mandate responsiveness as the weakest aspect of the quality of democracy in Eastern Europe. We build on this research and specify both direct and interaction effects of party promises and voter understanding on policy outcomes. On the empirical level, we develop a measure of citizen comprehension of party positions to analyze this component of the mandate model, previously omitted in much of the scholarship on the topic. Our findings suggest that elements of mandate responsiveness are emerging in the post‐communist countries, and that they are present in some policy areas but not in others. The effect of campaign pledges on policy outcomes is contingent on voter awareness of what politicians promise. This knowledge is improved by the distinctiveness in party programs regarding democratization and marketization.Related ArticlesLipsmeyer,Christine S.2009. “.”Politics & Policy37():715‐734.http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1747-1346.2009.00195.x/abstractKim,Myunghee.2007. “.”Politics & Policy35():496‐521.http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1747-1346.2007.00070.x/abstractWhitefield,Stephen, andRobertRohrschneider.2009. “.”Politics & Policy37():667‐690.http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1747-1346.2009.00193.x/abstractRelated Mediahttp://blogs.lse.ac.uk/europpblog/2015/10/27/what-does-law-and-justices-election-victory-in-poland-mean-for-europe/http://nottspolitics.org/2015/03/09/promises-promises-in-the-croatian-presidential-elections/http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/europpblog/2013/10/22/the-once-stable-czech-party-system-is-at-risk-of-unravelling-in-this-weeks-parliamentary-elections/

The Top Two: Too Soon to Tell

The Top Two: Too Soon to Tell Zabrae Valentine Until just a handful of years ago electoral reform advocates in California engaged regularly in eager debates about whether, with the right mix of structural governance reforms, state gov- ernment could be more accountable and effective for all Californians instead of only those with deep pockets and close ties to key power brokers (for a government reform geek, this is a very thrilling line of discussion, I promise you). Everyone had a theory, but no one knew for sure— because as recently as early November 2008, California hadn’t passed any of the numerous state- level reforms now jostling California voters. There was no Citizens Redistricting Commission, no Top Two, no loosening of the term limits law, and no initiative process reform (signed by Governor Brown only a few months ago). The last several years have been a veritable whirlwind of reform. Not surprisingly, now near- ly every pundit in the state and no doubt a few political scientists is desperate to opine on wheth- er the landscape has changed, and if so, then for better or worse? Data on the impact of these new policies is trickling in, but we should avoid firm conclusions until the Top Two has had time to take hold. Ideally, this will include giving voters a chance to become aware of the policy changes and consider altering their voting behavior in response, since impact on voter behavior is a major element of the predicted benefit of most of these reforms. The suggestion to chill for a while particularly applies to those eager to pass judgment on the Top Two, the efficacy of which really is largely a function of voter awareness and behavior. Absolutely we should be tracking the political affiliation of primary and run-off election can- didates, voter turnout, and how winners behave once in office, in the context of the Top Two. But it doesn’t make sense to try to interpret possible changes in voter behavior until voters have had a chance to know that in this shimmering new reform-infused world they can vote for any candidate irrespective of party affiliation, and all of those candidates are (or should be) vying for their vote. If, after robust steps have been taken to alert voters to these changes, voters still take a pass, then perhaps the reform should be viewed as less-than-wholly effective (controlling for un- related hurdles that also discourage eligible nonvoters from voting). Voter education of this kind hasn’t been done in a big way yet, but hopefully we’ll see it in 2016. In addition to ensuring voters are going to be in the loop, there is one more thing to consider. For the Top Two to actually be transformational, the date of the California primary also needs to be moved to much later in the year—for example, August. Candidates need sufficient time with voters to communicate their political agenda, values and leadership style, and voters need that time to absorb this information and decide what to do with it. The more candidates there are to choose from—and with the Top Two there could be many more—the harder this stage of the process is for everyone.

Analisis Strategi Komunikasi Pemasaran Terpadu dalam Meningkatan Partisipasi Pemilih pada Pemilu 2014

As the institution in charge of election administration, Election Commission of Republic of Indonesia or Komisi Pemilihan Umum (KPU) has consistently conducted campaign to increase number of voters who will participate in election. As a matter of fact, result of previous elections showed how the level of participation has been decreased. Lack of political awareness, level of knowledge upon the importance of election as well as skepticism on government and representatives’ performance were believed to be the trigger. Hence, it is important for KPU to enhance effective marketing communication program, ranging from the stages of planning, implementation and evaluation to promote public awareness to participate in the election. Therefore, this study aims to find how the principles of social marketing are actually implemented in designing communication program to increase voter awareness upon the importance of 2014 election. This study used qualitative method. Data were gathered from interview with related parties and literature study. Research found that the principles of social marketing to build awareness of voters basically have already been integrated in the programs of KPU toward the entire group of voters. In addition, KPU is quite aware of the importance of synergy between the programs of their communications both above the line and below the line. On April 9th legislative election, level of participation were increasing, reached 75.11%, up from 71% in the previous 2009 election. However, the level of participation of the July 9th presidential election dropped to 70% compared to the previous election in 2009, 72%. The result of these two elections should be considered as another challenge to KPU in improving their marketing communication strategy in the future.

Wybór opcji czy osoby? Determinanty zachowań wyborczych mieszkańców województwa podkarpackiego w wyborach do Parlamentu Europejskiego w 2014 r. w świetle badań empirycznych

Selecting the person? Determinants of voting behavior inhabitants of the Subcarpathian Voivodeship in elections to the European Parliament in 2014 in the light of empirical research The aim of the article was to present factors influencing voting behaviours of the Subcarpathian Voivodeship citizens during European Parliament elections in 2014, in the light of the conducted empirical research. The indicators that guided voters when casting votes to ballot boxes were analysed on the basis of a set of variables, such as: the attractiveness of election programmes and political parties, competences of candidates, the role of the Catholic Church during the election campaign, or the awareness of voters (self-reliance in making electoral decisions or its lack). The analysis and interpretations from the conducted research were preceded by a voting description of the Subcarpathian Voivodeship, treated, on a electoral map of Poland, as a specific region due to its above average support given to candidates and parties of right-wing provenance. In the final part conclusions drawn from the analytical process were presented. Key words: personalization, Subcarpathian Voivodeship, European Parliament elections, voting behaviour

Civil Society, Indian Elections and Democracy Today

Civil society in Independent India has perhaps never been as active as it is today, except in the years before and during the emergency. We explore the role it has played in strengthening and deepening democracy. We focus largely on the work done on introducing transparency, and on raising voter awareness. As a result of this work, a lot of public data is available on the extent of crime and money in elections and politics. We analyze this and point out some implications for democracy and good governance. A brief outline of developments since Independence shows that the number of parties has grown considerably along with crime and money. As the number of parties, it became possible to win elections with a lower vote share, making it easy for big money to influence or buy a smaller fraction of votes. Meanwhile as population grew, an elected MP now represents over 15 lakh voters on average, and an MLA over 2 lakh. This is the largest number by far anywhere in the world. The data on candidates and elected representatives’ criminal and financial record is analyzed in this context. It shows that the chances of winning increase considerably for candidates with more wealth. Unfortunately it also shows that those with serious criminal cases pending against them also have a higher chance of winning. The average wealth of over 62,800 candidates analyzed is Rs.1.37 crores, which goes up to Rs. 2.03 crores for third place candidates, Rs.2.47 crores for runners up, Rs.3.8 crores for winners, Rs.4.27 crores for winners with a criminal record, and Rs.4.38 crores for winners with serious criminal cases. Meanwhile, data from India’s largest ever citizen survey of over 262,000 people on various aspects of governance show that people are unhappy with Government. There are gaps in the roles civil society has played so far, and some strategic choices it needs to make. We discuss the way forward in this context. If this is done well, change is possible.

Voter information and electoral outcomes: the Norwegian list of shame

This paper studies the effect on vote shares and reelection probability for the incumbent’s party from a signal indicating poor fiscal performance. In Norway, local governments with persistent deficits are placed in the Register for State Review and Approval of Financial Obligations (Robek). In addition to increased central government monitoring, placement in Robek triggers a great deal of attention in the local media. It is thus expected to raise voter awareness of the fiscal stance of the local government. The results indicate that voters value the information embedded in this signal, and take it into account when casting their votes. Both the share of votes for the incumbent’s party and the probability that the incumbent party stays in office is significantly reduced as a consequence of the local government being included in the register. The vote share for the incumbent is reduced by about three percentage points, while the reelection probability is reduced by about 0.12.

Political Awareness and Microtargeting of Voters in Electoral Competition

In modern elections, ideologically motivated candidates with a wealth of information about individual voters and sophisticated campaign strategies are faced by voters who lack awareness of some political issues and are uncertain about the exact political positions of candidates. We study to what extent electoral campaigns can raise awareness of issues and unravel information about candidates' political positions. We allow for microtargeting in which candidates target messages to subsets of voters. A candidate's message consists of a subset of issues and some information on her political position in the multi-dimensional policy subspace spanned by this subset of issues. The information provided can be vague, it can be even silent on some issues, but candidates are not allowed to bluntly lie about their ideology. Every voter votes for the candidate she expects to be closest to her but takes into account only the subspace spanned by the issues that come up during the campaign. We show that any prudent rationalizable election outcome is the same as if voters have full awareness of issues and complete information of policy points, both in parliamentary and presidential elections. We show by examples that these results may break down when there is lack of electoral competition, when candidates are unable to use microtargeting, or when voters have limited abilities of political reasoning. Allowing for negative campaigning restores the positive results if voters' political reasoning abilities are limited. It can even be achieved with just public campaign message in the presidential elections while parliamentary elections still require microtargeting of voters.

Civic duty and political advertising

Should voter awareness policies and get-out-the-vote movements be promoted? This paper addresses the question using a model of political advertising that incorporates both the mobilization and the persuasion aspects of advertising. We characterize the equilibrium and conduct comparative statics analysis allowing evaluation of the effect of voter awareness policies or the activity of get-out-the-vote movements on political advertising and the information aggregated by the electoral outcome. We find that such policies or movements may lead to either an increase or a decrease in political advertising as well as in the probability that the candidate preferred by a majority of (all informed) citizens is elected.

Together We Will: Experimental Evidence on Female Voting Behavior in Pakistan

In many emerging democracies women are less likely to vote than men and, when they do vote, are likely to follow the wishes of male household and clan heads. We assess the impact of a voter awareness campaign on female turnout, candidate choice and party vote shares. Geographic clusters within villages were randomly assigned to treatment or control, and within treated clusters, some households were not targeted. Compared to women in control clusters, both targeted and untargeted women in treated clusters are 11 percentage points more likely to vote, and are also more likely to exercise independence in candidate choice, indicating large spillovers. Data from polling stations suggests that treating 10 women increased female turnout by about seven votes, resulting in a cost per vote of US$3.1. Finally, a 10 percent increase in the share of treated women at the polling station led to a 7 percent decrease in the share of votes of the winning party. (JEL D72, J12, J16, O12, O17, Z13)

On the “Voter Awareness” in Kafka’s Novels

“The Bible” stressed the Jews are God’s voters. The “voter awareness” infiltrated into the souls of all Jews. Kafka was a Jewish writer. The national consciousness from the deep soul affected his creations. This paper probes into the voter awareness interpreted in Kafka’s novels from three aspects: voters wandering at alien lands, adhering to the promised lands, and keeping watch to the belief temple.

Unused Votes in English Local Government Elections: Effects and Explanations

Examination of ward‐level aggregate data for English local council elections that employ a form of block voting demonstrates that 7–15% of total potential votes are unused. We test two possible explanations for this phenomenon. Firstly, unused votes occur when electors have a restricted choice of candidates, principally when parties fail to field as many candidates as there are available seats. Secondly, unused votes stem from a misunderstanding of the voting procedure. We find that both sources make statistically significant contributions to the explanation of the level of unused votes. The number of unused votes does decrease when more candidates stand for election. However, we also find that within each party’s slate of candidates those placed higher on the ballot paper have a clear advantage over those lower in the alphabetic order and hence lower in ballot paper order. Moreover, the level of educational attainment of a ward’s population is a statistically significant predictor of unused votes, suggesting perhaps that some voters are failing to understand the voting system. This analysis raises issues concerning voter awareness of block voting procedures and whether ballot paper order should be randomized in such cases in order to eradicate alphabetic bias.