Election Results Research Articles

Understanding the 2022 Kenyan presidential election outcome: insights from Key’s critical elections theory

ABSTRACT The ethnicisation of election and the concomitant diffusion of violence has been widely explored in the literature on Kenyan presidential elections. However, the critical character of the elections has been understudied, especially as it concerns the depth and intensity of involvement occasioned by the realignment of political actors. Oftentimes, this has resulted in the emergence of fundamental changes in power dynamics. This study drew insights from Key’s critical elections theory to analyse the 2022 Kenyan presidential election. Relying on primary and secondary sources, the study contends that the election exhibited critical characteristics owing to the economic crisis and the accompanying hardship on Kenyans, which united the poor electorate behind then-candidate William Ruto. The election revealed a sharp alteration in the pre-existing cleavage within the electorate and a profound readjustment in power relations as Key’s theory posited. This was amply demonstrated by Raila Odinga’s alliance with Uhuru Kenyatta, his old political foe, and Ruto’s populist campaign tenor – hustlers versus dynasties. We argue that the hustler narrative transcended primordial identity because it resonated with the poor electorate irrespective of their ethnicity. Therefore, it is the dynastic realignment and Ruto’s pro-poor campaign strategy that effectively set the tone for a critical election. We concluded that despite the seemingly subpar performance of President Ruto, he is still the candidate to beat in the 2027 presidential election if Odinga wins the African Union Chairmanship election in 2025. This study contributes to the growing body of literature on presidential elections in Africa.

Does Exposure to Election Fraud Research Undermine Confidence in Elections?

Abstract Can academic research on election fraud undermine public confidence in elections? As election results become instantaneously accessible all over the world, academic research can increasingly influence perceptions of election integrity. To examine how electoral fraud information from academic research can affect voters’ beliefs about the legitimacy of election results, we conducted a survey experiment following the 2020 general election in South Korea. Using a nationally representative sample of Korean voters and exploiting a unique real-world situation featuring foreign academics considered relatively impartial, we found that exposure to hypothetical election fraud claims undermined confidence in electoral outcomes, measured via both self-reports and behavioral measures. Moreover, the claims’ impact was conditional on voters’ partisan attachments—strongest among supporters of the losing party—which is in line with the logic of motivated reasoning. Our work contributes to the literature on election integrity, using a relatively new yet stable democracy as its test case.

The revenge of districts that don’t matter: inequality and elections in Rome from 2000 to 2023

ABSTRACT This article examines whether the theory of the ‘revenge of the places that don’t matter’ applies to urban districts within a metropolis like Rome, Italy. To contribute to this body of literature, we test the hypothesis of a ‘deprivation loop’ arising from local issues related to socio-economic marginality and urban deprivation. To explore this hypothesis, we analyse the relationships among compositional and contextual indicators using principal components analysis. We then use the resulting factor components as explanatory variables in multiple linear regression analyses of voting patterns. Between 2000 and 2023, electoral outcomes reveal that left-wing parties perform best in semi-central, densely populated districts, while right-wing and populist parties gain more support in low-density, sprawling outskirts. Other areas exhibit more variable trends following the turning points of 2008 and 2016. Our findings indicate that certain territorial determinants of discontent enhance electoral support for right-wing or populist parties by channelling protest votes. Key factors include residence in new sprawling districts with many young households, in socially challenged and marginal areas with a high prevalence of precarious or underemployed workers (often foreigners), and generally in ‘left behind’ places.

The Dynamics of Electoral Manipulation and Institutional Trust in Democracies: Election Timing, Blatant Fraud, and the Legitimacy of Governance.

This paper explores the dynamic relationship between electoral manipulation and popular trust in political institutions. Governments often manipulate election results by resorting to electoral fraud. They also tilt the electoral field by opportunistically deciding when to hold elections, in other words, election timing maneuvering. How do these two different types of electoral manipulation affect citizens' trust in the government, legislature, and election management bodies (EMBs)? We suggest that although the short-term effects of election timing manipulation are unclear due to its ambiguous nature as an electioneering strategy, substantial electoral margins created by timing maneuvering facilitate smooth decision-making, leading to boosting trust in the government and legislature over the long run. In contrast, as electoral fraud is an unambiguous form of manipulation, it may undermine trust in the government and parliament, although such effects may not last. By combining an original dataset of election timing with existing survey data comprising 335,000 citizens from fifty-eight democratic countries, we find evidence in support of our theoretical expectations.

Calling “Gevald”: on the emergence of negative election forecasts in partisan communications

AbstractIndividuals were found to anonymously predict positive election outcomes for their preferred candidate. Yet, there is little scientific knowledge about election predictions made in the context of same-camp political communications (i.e., partisan communications) that are presumably meant to encourage other supporters. In five studies of low-information elections and a study of hypothetical U.S. elections (n = 1889), we found that people tended to communicate favorable forecasts to others sharing their view, compared to the neutral point and to the actual election outcomes. On the other hand, negative framing reduced the positivity of forecasts in these communications to the extent that it led most participants to predict an election loss. This occurred in response to a single addressee acting discordantly and even more strongly when the election results were phrased as a drop. When both positive and negative framing options were available, this still negativity affected participants’ predictions even though only a minority selected the negative framing option. Thus, people tend to make optimistic election predictions in partisan communications, but this pattern is easily manipulable given subtle changes in the forecasting prompt, either by negative framing or selectable positive and negative framing.

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.

When rebels lose: The impact of civil war legacies on contemporary electoral outcomes in Peru, 2011–2021

Existing research on the electoral legacies of civil wars lacks a comprehensive understanding of the conditions under which certain expectations are valid. To bridge this gap, I explore the impact of Peru's civil war in the 1980s on contemporary electoral outcomes. Peru represents a case where the rebels were defeated by the Fujimori government, despite being responsible for a larger share of the violence. Using a unique dataset at the district level, I analyze the vote shares for Keiko Fujimori and her three primary left-wing opponents in the first rounds of the last three presidential elections. The findings indicate that Fujimori gains a premium in districts more affected by the conflict, while left-wing candidates experience an electoral disadvantage. A detailed analysis of the 2021 election shows that Pedro Castillo was able to offset this negative impact in poorer districts and those more severely affected by COVID-19.

Peran Kiai dalam Pemilihan Bupati dan Wakil Bupati Kabupaten Blitar Tahun 2020

This study examines the role of Kiai in the 2020 Blitar Regency Regent and Deputy Regent Election, especially in supporting the incumbent candidate pair. The main focus is to understand how Kiai, as part of a non-party social network, captures voter support and why they failed to win over the incumbent candidate's pair. This study also explores the motivation of Kiai in providing support and the form of patron-client relationship between Kiai and students or the voting community. Through qualitative descriptive methods, this study reveals that although the support of Kiai and ulama is important, the personal charisma of the candidates and the limitations of the campaign due to the Covid-19 pandemic also greatly affect the election results. The results of this study are expected to provide insight into local political dynamics and the important role of Kiai in political contestation in Blitar Regency.

Face Threatening-Acts In Indonesia Fourth Vice Presidential Candidate Election Debate (2024): Pragmatics Study

The research investigates face-threatening acts (FTAs) in the fourth vice-presidential election debate in Indonesia, applying a pragmatic approach to analyze how strategies and acts used impact the candidates’ electability and credibility. This study also focused on the word choices during the debate that can be considered rude or put the other candidates in an uncomfortable situation and how this affects the flow of debate. Qualitative procedures including display data, quoting, and authentication were used in the data analysis process. By applying the politeness theory of Brown and Levinson, the study classifies and divides the FTAs into positive and negative faces. According to the study, the three candidates regularly use strategies meant to harm the public perceptions of their opponents in order to influence voter opinions and affect election results. The research offers insights into the purpose of communication tactics in political debates and their broader impact on political discourse and election outcomes by comprehending the dynamics of FTAs in this high-stakes environment.

An Islamist disadvantage? Revisiting electoral outcomes for Islamists in the Middle East

In this article, we interrogate the extent to which a so-called Islamist advantage existed prior to the Arab Spring by examining country cases often neglected in the literature on Sunni Islamism. We then assess the extent to which the presumed ‘ft of Islamist fortunes post-Arab Spring exists (a) solely in the Sunni sphere or extends to independent Shiʿi movements, and (b) is present in country cases less commonly studied: Bahrain, Iraq, Kuwait, and Lebanon. We find overall that there is no difference in advantage or disadvantage between Sunni and Shiʿi Islamists; what matters more than the moment of the Arab Spring for understanding the future of Islamism writ large is inclusion of country case studies that are often neglected, like those of Iraq and Lebanon, which complicate assumptions made about Islamists in electoral politics in the Arab world and add nuance to the argument over the existence of an Islamist advantage.

The UK general election results: the effects on health care and what this means for social care

Adrian Ashurst and Lisa Morgan discuss the impact of the recent Labour landslide election result.

Social Media, Sentiments and Political Discourse ? An Exploratory Study of the 2021 Canadian Federal Election

Social media are widely used for online political discourse. Opinions shared on social media have different sentiments associated with them. Given the very high adoption rates of Twitter (now X) among adults, those who share their opinions on Twitter (X) not only represent a sizable segment of the society, but also influence (through emotion contagion) an even larger segment who are passive (non-contributing) users of the platform. Further, the discourse that is initiated on Twitter (X) typically spreads to other more traditional media. As a result, Twitter (X) is influential, which makes it useful to understand the factors related to the sentiments expressed in tweets. Such understanding can help policymakers to take actions that align with public needs and priorities. This research focuses on identifying the drivers (keywords) of sentiments associated with political discourse on Twitter (X). We also explore virality, i.e., how much a message (the tweet) spreads, and the relationship between sentiments and virality. Finally, we explore whether the clustering of tweets among sentiment and virality groups can improve the potential of social media content for predicting election results. Sentiment Analysis of 764,000 tweets related to the 2021 Canadian Federal election was followed by text clustering to identify sentiment-driving topics. We found some keywords predominantly present within a positive or negative sentiment that are suggestive of entities or ideas to invest in or mitigate by political decision makers. We were also able to find partial evidence for “negativity bias” by detecting a negative relationship between sentiment (positivity) and virality (number of retweets). Finally, we demonstrated that high positivity on the political discourse does not reflect election outcomes and examining Twitter (X) content in more neutral groups can improve predictive power. Our findings have implications for political decision makers and social media analytics researchers.

Political Issues in Social Media Campaigns for National Elections: A Plea for Comparative Research

As ideological, class-based voting has waned, issue-based voting has become more prevalent. Political parties can sway election outcomes by promoting certain topics, particularly on social media, which has become pivotal to political communication. However, our understanding of political actors’ social media strategies remains limited. This thematic issue, based on the international research project Digital Election Campaigning Worldwide (DigiWorld), aims to broaden such understanding. Examining 14 countries across Western Europe, Eastern Europe, North America, Latin America, and Oceania, the 10 articles in this issue reveal diverse approaches to issue-based political communication on social media, emphasizing the significance of comparative research in this field.

Digital Technologies as a Means of Exercising Electoral Rights of Сitizens of the Russian Federation

The paper provides an overview of digital resources used during election campaigns, highlighting their positive and negative sides supported by cases from practice. Electronic democracy is considered as a logical consequence of introduction of information technologies to the life of society. The paper analyzes remote electronic voting as a subsidiary way of implementing active suffrage in the Russian Federation; The author considers a "Mobile Voter" as an alternative to absentee ballots that meets the requirements of the time; digital services provided through the federal state information system "Unified Portal of State and Municipal Services", as well as the possibilities of artificial intelligence in the framework of elections. It is pointed to the promotion of digital resources for the implementation of not only active but passive suffrage, which is expressed in the possibility of collecting signatures by candidates online. We witness an increase in the importance of AI technologies during election campaigns, as well as the need for legislative regulation of the limits of their use due to the risks of spreading fake information that can influence the opinion of voters about running candidates and, as a result, the election results. Since artificial intelligence technologies are new, there are gaps in the legal regulation of the issue under consideration in the Russian Federation. Thus, the paper indicates the impossibility of solving the identified problem by the point adoption of certain norms and, using the example of foreign experience, emphasizes the need for a systematic approach to the development of an appropriate regulatory legal act and highlights the possibility of forming a new branch of law (a digital branch) due to the announcement of the adoption of the digital code.

Estimator Comparison for the Prediction of Election Results

Cluster randomized experiments and estimator comparisons are well-documented topics. In this paper, using the datasets of the popular vote in the presidential elections of the United States of America (2012, 2016, 2020), we evaluate the properties (SE, MSE) of three cluster sampling estimators: Ratio estimator, Horvitz–Thompson estimator and the linear regression estimator. While both the Ratio and Horvitz–Thompson estimators are widely used in cluster analysis, we propose a linear regression estimator defined for unequal cluster sizes, which, in many scenarios, performs better than the other two. The main objective of this paper is twofold. Firstly, to indicate which estimator is most suited for predicting the outcome of the popular vote in the United States of America. We do so by applying the single-stage cluster sampling technique to our data. In the first partition, we use the 50 states plus the District of Columbia as primary sampling units, whereas in the second one, we use 3112 counties instead. Secondly, based on the results of the aforementioned procedure, we estimate the number of clusters in a sample for a set standard error while also considering the diminishing returns from increasing the number of clusters in the sample. The linear regression estimator is best in the majority of the examined cases. This type of comparison can also be used for the estimation of any other country’s elections if prior voting results are available.

Economic Growth and Development of the Country through EVoting, Free and Fair Elections

Elections are an important means to elect the democratic governments for aspecific period to rule the country and work for the growth and development of thepeople. Voting, in this regard, is used as a tool in this democratic process. Thetraditional voting systems witnessed low turnout of masses, result delays, riggingand formation of handicap governments, litigation, protests and several otherproblems including high cost of this futile exercise. In this scenario, e-Voting(Electronic Voting) seems the ultimate solution to pull the county out of jeopardyand helps in the creation of popular governments duly elected by the majorityvotes of the masses. This study is an attempt to develop a solution model for allsuch countries, including Pakistan, where Elections are of paramount importance,but the outcomes of elections are compromised thereby resulting in weakdemocratic system which remains vulnerable and lacks popular support of massesin general.

The Role Of Religious Moderation In Political Dynamics In Indonesia

Religious moderation plays a crucial role in shaping the political landscape of Indonesia, a diverse nation characterized by various religious beliefs and practices. This research investigates the significance of religious moderation in navigating the complex political dynamics of the country. Through a comprehensive analysis of primary and secondary sources, including academic literature, governmental reports, and media sources, the study examines how religious moderation influences political behavior, policy-making processes, and interfaith relations in Indonesia. By exploring the impact of religious moderation on electoral outcomes, political discourse, and the overall stability of the political system, this research sheds light on the multifaceted role of moderation in promoting democracy, social cohesion, and inclusive governance. Additionally, the study explores the challenges and opportunities associated with fostering religious moderation in the Indonesian context, offering insights into strategies for enhancing interfaith understanding, tolerance, and cooperation in the pursuit of a more harmonious and equitable society

THE POLITICAL FUNCTION OF PUBLIC FINANCE. THE POLAND EXAMPLE

The article concerns the function of public finance. The authors attempt to provide an answer as to whether, in addition to the classic functions of public finance – the allocative, redistributive and stabilizing functions – one can arrive at a claim that public finance also plays a political function. These reflections are based on the course of 2023 parliamentary elections in Poland and the analysis of election programs presented by the individual political parties. Extracted from the programs were all the promises which could impact the redistribution of public goods and services and would involve their public funding, as well as those which could impact the tax revenues of the state. The analysis leads to the conclusions that the scope of public spending and the degree of fiscalism were one of the main factors encouraging the voters to vote for a particular political party. Since election promises have a major impact on the election results and they can be turned into legal regulations impacting public budgets, the claim concerning the political function of public finance is justified.

How Would Preferential Voting Have Changed Taiwan’s 2024 Presidential Election?

Would the results of Taiwan’s 2024 presidential election have differed under preferential voting rules? Observers assume that the split in the opposition virtually guaranteed Lai Ching-te’s victory, but no analysis has aimed to measure ranked preferences across the three presidential candidates. This analysis combines original pre-election survey data that includes preference ordering of candidates with simulation analysis of the actual election results under the alternative vote and Borda count systems. The original survey finds Ko Wen-je would have won under both preferential systems, while simulating preference ordering using the 2024 election results suggests Lai would have won under alternative vote but lost to Hou You-ih under Borda count.

ELECTION RESULT PREDICTION

This study utilizes Text Blob for sentiment analysis of social media and news data to predict election results. By analyzing sentiment polarity, a comprehensive understanding of public opinion towards political entities is obtained. Machine learning algorithms are employed to build predictive models using historical election data. Results demonstrate the effectiveness of sentiment analysis in enhancing prediction accuracy compared to traditional methods. This research has implications for political campaigns and policymakers in gauging public sentiment and anticipating electoral outcomes. Keywords— Text Blob, sentiment analysis, election prediction, social media, machine learning.