Election Day Research Articles

Using Cell-phone Mobility Data to Study Voter Turnout

AbstractStudies of voting behavior in some settings may be hampered by poor data availability or unsuitably large units of aggregation for reported turnout. We propose and demonstrate a practical big-data solution to these kinds of challenges, using fine-grained cell-phone mobility data on millions of GPS locations for more than 300,000 eligible voters in Tokyo. Our approach uses the geolocations of polling stations, combined with GPS data points recorded on election day and a reference day, to measure patterns in individual-level (but anonymized) voting behavior. We first test the validity of the measure by comparing it to official aggregated data on turnout, and then illustrate its substantive utility with an application exploring the well-known relationship between turnout decisions and the cost of voting, proxied by the distance between a voter’s residence and the polling station. Finally, we discuss the potential limitations of the approach and provide step-by-step instructions for other researchers.

‘Waiting for the Barbarians’: constructing the visible invisibility of Australia’s ‘boat people’

ABSTRACT The image of the barbarian at the border has long captured the imagination of ‘civilized’ communities. Drawing on C P Cavafy’s 1904 poem, Waiting for the Barbarians, and J M Coetzee’s 1980 novel of the same name, this article explores the Australian polity’s responses to the arrival of ‘boat people’, who embody the ‘barbarian Other’ in the Australian psyche. Examining the response to unauthorised boat arrivals on Australian Federal Election day in 2022, it situates those events as part of Australia’s performance of Waiting for the Barbarians. It then examines how ‘visible invisibility’ of ‘boat people’ is constructed visually, juridically and geographically. It considers how the cultivation of fear, hostility, and forgetting enable the visible invisibility so constructed. Finally, it turns to the possibilities of resistance to the construction and devastating human effects of visible invisibility. To do this, it looks to those who are ‘visibly invisible’ for inspiration, exploring how documentary, literature, art, music, and artificial intelligence can be harnessed as powerful forms of non-violent resistance. As Cavafy and Coetzee do, the article serves as a reminder that the barbarian is within us as it ponders the possibility of ‘boat people’ offering ‘us’ a different kind of solution.

Application of Election Technology in Kenya and Tanzania: a Self-Locked Knot?

Abstract The use of election technology has been considered a solution to most of the electoral challenges. The adoption of biometric voter registration and voter identification is meant to solve registration and identification challenges. Consequently, Tanzania and Kenya’s electoral processes are not exception. Despite the digitized registration and identification process on election day, voters are statutorily required to produce identification documents in order to be allowed to vote. While technology was applied in Kenya and Tanzania with the intention of resolving challenges, it turned out to be a self locked knot. This article offers an analytical discussion on the adoption and application of election technology in Kenya and Tanzania with reference to their legal frameworks.

Is Negative Campaigning a Response to a Dynamic Polling Environment? Evidence from Facebook and Twitter Posts by German Party Leaders in the 2021 German Federal Election

ABSTRACT Do negative campaigning strategies evolve in sync with a party leader’s position in public opinion polls? In Germany’s multi-party system, previous research during the traditional media era found that a chancellor candidate’s drop in the polls did not impact negativity. This study focuses on the dynamic campaign in the 2021 Federal Election, which is the most competitive campaign to date in the social media era as there was no incumbent chancellor candidate. The prevalence of negative campaigning by six major party leaders who made a total of n = 3580 posts on Facebook and Twitter from 1 March to Election Day on 25 September 2021 is studied here. Negative posts accounted for 7.7 per cent of total posts. Results also show that a chancellor candidate’s position in the polls matters: Front-runners are less likely to rely on negative campaigning, but as candidates drop down in the polls from being the main challenger to rank third or lower, their negative campaigning increases. During the official six-week campaign or the hot phase, the number of negative posts increases overall as Election Day approaches. Variation in the use of negative campaigning among the individual chancellor candidates is discussed as is evidence of negative campaigning prior to the hot phase.

Voters distrust delayed election results, but a prebunking message inoculates against distrust.

Counting and certifying election results in the United States can take days and even weeks following election day. These delays are often linked to distrust in elections but does delay cause distrust? What can election officials do to counteract distrust if counting most ballots and announcing results cannot occur on election night? Using a preregistered survey experiment of nearly 10,000 Americans, this article shows that informing voters about longer-than-expected vote counting time induces a large, significant decrease in trust in the election. However, viewing a "prebunking" video in advance of being informed of the delay in results more than makes up for the delay-induced decrease in election trust. Our findings have two important implications. First, unexpected delays in calling elections induce distrust even without misinformation from third parties. Second, providing voters with information about vote counting and the legitimate reasons for delays increases trust and mitigates the distrust induced by delays.

On the Road to Electoral Democracy? Erosion of the Free and Fair Elections Standard in the Era of the Polish Constitutional Crisis after 2015

This article attempts to diagnose the state of democracy in Poland, remaining in the era of constitutional crisis and following the erosion of the free and fair elections standard, which determines the criteria for distinguishing an electoral democracy from a liberal democracy. For this purpose, the individual elements constituting this concept are analyzed, both having a procedural dimension and referring to the course of the three phases of the electoral process itself (the period before election day, on election day and after election day), as well as referring to the standards of honesty, reliability, the real possibility of alternative power or equal opportunities. The conclusions drawn at individual stages of the deliberations, including an indication of the destabilisation of electoral law, the erosion of guarantees regarding the reliability of elections, disproportion in the access of political party representatives to public media, lead to a thesis on the formation of electoral democracy in Poland, which can be described as a democratic system devoid of liberal values. It is characterised by restrictions on freedom of association, freedom of speech and academic freedom, electoral distortions, unequal access of representative political parties to the public media and judicial guarantees related to the electoral process.

Toward Digital Election in Indonesia: Cost Effectiveness Analysis of IVORI (Internet-Voting Republik Indonesia) as an e-Voting System

The election in 2019 was held simultaneously, where people directly elected the DPR, DPD, Provincial/Regency/City DPRD, President and Vice President on April 17, 2019. All the changes in the implementation of elections in Indonesia since 1999, all of them are still carried out using paper. The history of the simultaneous elections in Indonesia in 2019, which were quite expensive, is a consideration for a more sustainable election process. Since the beginning of this century, internet voting has become the most straightforward and prevalent electoral reform adopted by many countries, with the goal of lowering voting expenses by enhancing convenience. This study aims to compare the Cost-Effectiveness Analysis (CEA) of conventional elections using paper ballots with digital-based elections using internet voting (I-voting) and we also developed a prototype of a digital election system called IVORI (I-Voting Republik Indonesia). The results show that elections using the I-voting system are proven to be 71% more cost-effective than conventional systems. IVORI is an internet-based digital election web application that offers two features, namely "VOTING" which will only be active on election day for voters who are eligible to vote and have been previously registered so that they can log in to the application using their ID number and voting station code and the "INFORMASI KANDIDAT" feature which can be accessed by voters during the candidate's campaign period which contains information about the background and work program plans of each candidate.

COVID-19 anti-vaccine misinformation discourse on Twitter: Influential roles of polarization and the 2020 US presidential election

This study investigated the politicization of COVID-19 vaccination on Twitter in the context of the 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. I analyzed 2,100 English tweets related to COVID-19 antivaccine misinformation from October 28th, 2020, to November 3rd, 2020 (one week before Election Day). Those tweets clustered into 12 topics.The result indicated that conspiracy theories about population control have raised concerns and become prevalent in perpetuating anti-vaccine beliefs. It also reflects the rise of a new trend in anti-vaccine topics. The study highlights the influence of partisan reasoning on vaccination decision-making in the context of a public health crisis caused by COVID-19, and the difficulty in correcting partisan-driven conspiracy theories and misinformation.

Challenging and Enhancing Legitimacy Through Humor: A Comparative Study of Candidates’ Use of Humor on Facebook before the 2019 and 2023 Finnish Parliamentary Elections

A prevalent aspect of contemporary digital campaigning is the use of humor to attract attention, elicit amusement, and mark group boundaries. This study investigates the humor in digital campaigns during two recent Finnish parliamentary elections, focusing on how different styles of humor are used to (de)legitimize political ideas and actors. Our original dataset consists of 125,604 posts by 1262 candidates on Facebook six months before the 2019 and 2023 election days. Using Facebook’s haha reactions and manual coding to annotate humor style, we focused on 729 posts with seemingly intentional humor by candidates. We show how different parties and individual candidates used humor to varying degrees and in different styles. Overall, the proportion of humorous posts was not high, but the populist radical right Finns Party candidates used humor by far the most, and their style was primarily aggressive, aimed at delegitimizing the incumbent government, political opponents, and their reference groups. Candidates from other major parties also used some humor, but overall the tone was more positive. Some of these candidates were profiled as “humor specialists” who produced similar combinations of ridicule and anti-elitism as the Finns Party candidates or, alternatively, focused on disseminating self-deprecating and affiliative humor. Affiliative and self-deprecating humor was used to foster closeness, ordinariness, and spontaneity, thus legitimizing oneself as a relatable candidate. The paper discusses how candidates use humor strategically to stand out in a competition for attention between candidates, and elaborates on the implications of using different humor styles in strategic political communication.

Using Twitter to Detect Polling Place Issue Reports on U.S. Election Days

Using Twitter to Detect Polling Place Issue Reports on U.S. Election Days

Accelerating SIREKAP Digital Transformation in the 2020 Natuna Regency Election

The aim of this research is to analyze the implementation of digital transformation in the use of Sirekap in Pilkada 2020 district of Natuna. This type of research is qualitative, using a single case study research strategy, which involves an individual in one company or office, namely the Natuna Regency KPU office. The research design used is qualitative research. The acceleration of digital transformation is essential in the operational process of acquisition and as a support tool while minimizing risks from the early stages of the elections, the election day, and the post-election period. (post-election). The over-implementation of the Sirekap in the election of the head of the Bupati district and the Deputy Bupati District of Natuna district in 2022 increases transparency and accountability to increase public confidence in the results of the election calculations. The Sirekap application makes the working time of the KPU more effective than manual calculations. The KPU, with the presence of the Sireap application, also makes the information disseminated to the public no less rapidly than the survey agency because the region can monitor the data entered in the place of direct voting. The Sirekap application also has a high level of rigor and minimizes the error rate of voting calculation

Changing the rules to win the game again: does presidential term-limit evasion affect measures of electoral integrity?

ABSTRACT Presidential term-limit evasion (TLE) is inconsistent with international human rights, and researchers have linked the practice to democratic backsliding. Yet, this practice has much to uncover, including how different TLE tactics (constitutional court ruling, legislative change, referendum) influence electoral integrity. We expect the increase in the incumbent advantage and the imbalance in the separation of powers obtained through TLE to affect the integrity of the subsequent elections in which the evading leader is running. To test this, we analyse an original dataset of 414 presidential terms in 63 African and Latin American countries (1988–2019), using mixed-effects models to investigate each tactic’s effect on different electoral measures, including overall quality perception, Electoral Management Body Autonomy, election day irregularities, vote buying, and intimidation. We confirm our expectations, further finding that the court mode specifically consistently precedes the worst effects on electoral quality, EMB Autonomy, irregularities, intimidation, and voter registry accuracy.

A Geographical Analysis of the Parties’ Votes in the Electoral Districts of Kurdistan Region for the 2021 Election of the Council of Representatives of Iraq

The geography of election investigates the results of election, the distribution of electoral circles, voters, census, voter registration, electoral law, and any other geographical factors that directly or indirectly affect the election process. This type of geography is to analyze the voting for the participating parties and candidates in the process. The significance of the present paper is due to its investigation of the election which was brought forward and was a response to the requirements of Iraqi 2021 protests. Additionally, for the first time, it was held in the system of multiple electoral circles in Iraq and Iraqi Kurdistan Region. The election also witnessed a change in the number of circles to reflect greater geographical representation. Consequently, the study explores the influence of changes in the number of election circles on the whole process, people’s participation rate, the voting distribution for the parties, and the difference between each circle’s boundaries and the related areas. Additionally, the study aims at identifying the feasibility of having multiple circles system in the elections and analyzing the increase and decrease trends of the voters’ voting to the participated parties, the parties’ parliament seats, and how these votes are and will be distributed. To analyze the data, the researchers used both spatial and analytical analysis methods. The research findings reveal that a large number of people (48%) did not go to vote on the election day, the number of spoilt ballots was considerably high, and in the system of multiple electoral territories, there is more geographical representation and equality.

Using wearable technology for Posture Regulation to Improve Surgical Ergonomics in the paediatric operating room: the UPRISE trial: a pilot study

BackgroundThe rising prevalence of work-related musculoskeletal disorders has numerous physical, financial, and mental repercussions for surgeons. This study aims to establish whether the use of a wearable posture device can improve the operating time spent in suboptimal, high-risk postures.MethodsSurgeons were recruited in Phase 1 of this prospective randomised study and baseline postural data was obtained. In Phase 2, participants were randomised to receive either a traditional educational workshop or intraoperative vibrations from the device to correct postural lapses. During minor elective day cases, intraoperative postural data was collected and stratified by forward flexion angle, into five risk categories (negligible to very high). Participants’ experience with the sensor was also assessed.ResultsA total of 100 surgical procedures (Phase 1: n = 50; Phase 2: n = 50) were performed by eight surgeons of varying seniority. Exposure to the educational intervention increased time spent in suboptimal posture (Phase 1 vs. Phase 2); 47.5% vs. 67.8%, p = 0.05. However, the vibrational intervention significantly reduced this time; 50.0% vs. 20.7%, p = 0.005. Procedure type didn’t influence posture although, laparoscopic interventions spent most time in negligible-risk postures; 47.7% vs. 49.3%, compared to open procedures. Surgical consultants spent less time in suboptimal posture compared to fellow/registrars; 30.3% vs. 72.6% (Phase 1) and 33.8% vs. 65.3% (Phase 2).ConclusionVibrational intervention from the device significantly decreased the time spent in suboptimal, high-risk postures. As procedure type wasn’t correlated with postural changes, surgeon-specific factors in regulating posture are paramount. Finally, surgeon experience was positively correlated with improved surgical ergonomics.

Early voting can widen the turnout gap: The case of childbirth

Early voting procedures boost voter participation and have therefore been suggested as institutional remedies for the problem of unequal turnout. Scholars have, however, raised concerns that making voting more convenient may actually lead to a less representative electorate. We contribute to this debate by leveraging large-scale Swedish registry data to analyze persons expecting a child around the time of the election. Our results indicate that politically engaged high-status voters are more likely to use the opportunity to vote in advance when faced with the risk of not being able to vote on election day. Given the large number of obstacles to election-day voting that individuals face throughout life, it is therefore conceivable that efforts to make voting more convenient and less costly for citizens may in the end lead to less representative electorates.

Quantifying polarization in online political discourse

In an era of increasing political polarization, its analysis becomes crucial for the understanding of democratic dynamics. This paper presents a comprehensive research on measuring political polarization on X (Twitter) during election cycles in Spain, from 2011 to 2019. A wide comparative analysis is performed on algorithms used to identify and measure polarization or controversy on microblogging platforms. This analysis is specifically tailored towards publications made by official political party accounts during pre-campaign, campaign, election day, and the week post-election. Guided by the findings of this comparative evaluation, we propose a novel algorithm better suited to capture polarization in the context of political events, which is validated with real data. As a consequence, our research contributes a significant advancement in the field of political science, social network analysis, and overall computational social science, by providing a realistic method to capture polarization from online political discourse.

The rise of nativism in populist political communication: A case study of the Facebook communication strategy of Freedom and Direct Democracy during the 2021 Czech parliamentary elections

Abstract The 2021 elections to the Chamber of Deputies of the Parliament of the Czech Republic brought a shift in populist political communication. While previous research has shown that the emphasis is on accentuating the theme of migration, the 2020 Senate elections have indicated that attention is shifting to patriotic themes. This was confirmed by the 2021 elections to the Chamber of Deputies, when nativism became a key element of populist political communication in the Czech Republic. The research included data from the hot phase of the campaign and two election days (8 and 10 October 2021) and focused on the populist political communication of the Freedom and Direct Democracy movement on Facebook.

Mode of candidacy, electoral prospects, and the ideological deviation of candidacy-seeking politicians from their party leadership

Politicians who seek their parties' nomination as candidates for public office start communicating their ideological profile to the selectorate months before the party decides on who will run as candidates. However, some politicians tend to steer away from their party leadership, while others stick closer to the party line. We argue that not only the mode of candidacy but one's expected chances of winning the election during the candidate selection period are defining factors in understanding why some candidates deviate further from their party leadership position than others. We use novel data on the degree of intra-party competition among the main German parties in all 299 electoral districts and on the ideological positions of candidates, measured using their Twitter statements in the run-up to the 2021 Bundestag election, to evaluate our expectations. In line with existing studies, we find that candidates who seek only their party's nomination via lists deviate less from party leadership than candidates who seek nomination as a district candidate. In contrast to our expectations, candidates who seek their nomination in an electoral district do not deviate more ideologically from their party when they can expect to win the district seat on election day based on published polls during the candidate selection period.

Voting according to one’s political stances is difficult: Problems definition, computational hardness, and approximate solutions

This paper studies the computational complexity of two voting problems where the goal is deciding how a given voter should vote to favour their personal stances. In the first problem, given (a) the voter stance towards each law that will be voted by the parliament and (b) the political stance of each party towards each law (all party members are assumed to vote according to it), the goal is finding the parliamentary seats distribution maximizing the number of laws that will be approved/rejected as desired by the voter. In the second problem no parliament is involved, but a single issue with several possible answers is voted by citizens in a presidential election with several candidates. The problem consists in deciding how a group of voters, split in different electoral districts, all of them supporting the same candidate, should vote to make their candidate president. It is assumed that (a) all delegates of each electoral district are assigned to the candidate winning in the district, (b) after the election day, candidates may ask their assigned delegates to support other candidates receiving more votes than them, and these post-electoral supporting stances are known in advance by the electorate, and (c) the group of voters that is coordinated knows the votes that will be cast by the rest of the electorate. For each problem, its NP-hardness as well as its inapproximability are proved. This implies that something as essential as exercising the democratic right to vote, in such a way that the voting choice will be the best for the voter’s political stances, is at least NP-hard. It is also shown how genetic algorithms can be used to obtain reasonable solutions in practice despite the limitations of theoretical approximation hardness.

Rapid Access From Primary Care to a Multidisciplinary Clinic at Tertiary Care Improves Clinical Outcomes for Patients With Diabetic Foot Ulcers: Results From Diabetic Foot in Primary and Tertiary (DEFINITE) Care's Lower Extremity Amputation Prevention Program (LEAPP) Clinic.

Diabetic Foot in Primary and Tertiary (DEFINITE) Care is an inter-institutional, multidisciplinary team (MDT) program for patients with diabetic foot ulcers (DFU) within a healthcare cluster in Singapore. This is one of our subgroup analyses within DEFINITE Care, assessing clinical outcomes of lower extremity amputation prevention program (LEAPP), a multidisciplinary diabetic foot clinic, and non-LEAPP patients within the program. From June 2020 to June 2022, 2798 patients within the DEFINITE cohort completed a minimum of 12-month follow up. Of these patients, 20.6% were managed by LEAPP, whereas 79.4% were non-LEAPP patients. Patients in the LEAPP cohort were older with co-existing metabolic conditions and complications of diabetes. Using non-LEAPP cohort as the reference group and after adjusting for age, gender, ethnicity, comorbidities, and medications, there was a significantly lower risk of death (odds ratio [OR] 0.60, P = .001) and composite major lower extremity amputation (LEA) or death (OR 0.66, P = .002) among LEAPP patients at 1 year with longer mean days from enrollment to minor LEA, major LEA, and death. The adjusted 1-year healthcare utilization outcomes for LEAPP patients demonstrated an increase in inpatient admissions, primary care polyclinic visits, hospital specialist outpatient clinic (SOC) visits and elective day surgery procedures. Despite the increased in inpatients admissions, cumulative hospital length of stay in LEAPP patients were lower. This subgroup analysis has demonstrated that the MDT approach to caring for patients with DFU in tertiary centers not only improves mortality by 40%, but also delayed the incidence of minor LEA, major LEA, and death.