Electoral Practices Research Articles

The Theory of Fairness with Integrity in Indonesia’s Electoral Justice System

This paper describes the concept of a fairness theory of justice with integrity applied in elections in Indonesia, drawing on the transformation of John Rawls' fairness theory. This theory is employed to examine various components of the electoral legal framework, focusing on the technical implementation of elections and the resolution of electoral disputes to achieve electoral justice in Indonesia. The research utilizes normative legal methodology, characterized by dogmatic legal analysis and theoretical-rational reasoning, employing a logical-deductive approach. It constructs the facts of electoral justice through an extensive review of legal literature and relevant data sources concerning the electoral process in Indonesia. The study addresses electoral practices as instruments of popular sovereignty, highlighting dissatisfaction among stakeholders regarding the election process. The theoretical variables associated with fairness with integrity are critically analyzed for their applicability in fostering electoral justice in Indonesia, emphasizing that a fundamental aim of electoral law enforcement is to ensure the realization of electoral justice.

ANTI-CORRUPTION RESPONSIBILITIES OF CANDIDATES ACCORDING TO THE LEGISLATION OF KAZAKHSTAN (based on materials of the election campaign for the elections of the Mazhilis of Kazakhstan 2023)

The article notes that the institution of elections is one of the important elements of state security in any state. In this regard, it is common practice to enshrine in national electoral legislation provisions aimed at ensuring law and order in various spheres of life. Anti-corruption norms occupy a special place in electoral legislation. The article notes that the institution of elections is one of the important elements of state security in any state. In this regard, it is common practice to enshrine in national electoral legislation provisions aimed at ensuring law and order in various spheres of life. Anti-corruption norms occupy a special place in electoral legislation. According to the author, the enshrinement of anti-corruption responsibilities in the electoral legislation is connected to a greater extent not with electoral law, but with the legislation defining the legal status of deputies and elected officials. The author examines the features of establishing anti-corruption responsibilities in the legislation of the Republic of Kazakhstan, as well as electoral practice. In most cases, the judicial authorities decided to uphold the decision of the relevant election commission to cancel the registration of a candidate. Moreover, in a number of cases, candidates managed to overturn the decision of the election commission to refuse registration. An analysis of electoral practice led to the conclusion that in most cases, many offenses in the area under consideration were the result of candidates’ legal illiteracy, their inattention, and the amount of unreliable information was most often insignificant. In this regard, it is concluded that the legislation should allow election commissions and judicial bodies to more widely use their own discretion when resolving such cases.

Law Enforcement Effectiveness Against the Practice of Money Politics on the Implementation of Regional Head Elections in 2018, in Lahat District (Case Study of Judgment Number: 238/Pid.Sus/2018/PN.Lht)

This study investigates the effectiveness of law enforcement measures in curbing the pervasive practice of money politics during the implementation of regional head elections in 2018, focusing on the case of Lahat District. Money politics, characterized by using financial resources to influence electoral outcomes, poses a significant threat to the democratic process and the integrity of elections. The research aims to assess law enforcement agencies' strategies to counteract and prevent the infiltration of money politics in the electoral landscape. The methodology involves a comprehensive analysis of legal frameworks, law enforcement initiatives, and their practical implications in the Lahat District during the 2018 regional head elections. Data will be collected through interviews with key stakeholders, including law enforcement officials, election commission representatives, political candidates, and community leaders.Reviewing relevant documents, reports, and media coverage will also contribute to a holistic understanding of the electoral process dynamics. The findings of this study aim to provide insights into the challenges faced by law enforcement agencies in the Lahat District and propose recommendations for enhancing their effectiveness in addressing the issue of money politics. Understanding the specific context and experiences of the Lahat District can contribute to the development of targeted strategies that can be applied more broadly to strengthen the overall integrity of regional head elections in Indonesia and beyond. Ultimately, the research aspires to advance transparent, fair, and democratic electoral practices by mitigating the influence of illicit financial activities on the political process.

Fortifying Democracy: Deploying Electoral Justice for Robust Personal Data Protection in the Indonesian Election

Elections stand as a cornerstone of democracy, yet the burgeoning integration of technology and personal data underscores the pressing need for safeguarding individual privacy within the electoral process. This study endeavors to scrutinize the efficacy of the Electoral Justice System in fortifying the protection of personal data throughout the registration, verification, and adjudication phases of political party participation in the forthcoming 2024 elections. Through an empirical juridical methodology, this research delves into the practical application of the Electoral Justice System across diverse national contexts, elucidating its role in mitigating the perils of data misuse and upholding electoral integrity. The findings underscore the imperative of imbuing the Electoral Justice System with structural robustness, substantive fidelity, and a conducive legal culture to ensure the seamless functioning of electoral processes. Additionally, stringent regulations, robust data verification protocols, independent oversight mechanisms, and punitive measures emerge as indispensable facets of effective Electoral Justice System implementation, essential for curtailing infringements of the exploitation of personal data and fostering accountable electoral practices.

Illegal Measures Influencing Voting Behavior in Traditional Communities of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa District Dir Upper

The present study aimed to probe the illegal measures influencing voting behavior (VB) in traditional communities of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP), Pakistan. To obtain study objectives, a sample size of 317 respondents (212 males and 105 females) were picked from 12 randomly selected villages belonging to 06 selected union councils (UC) of 06 tehsils in District Upper Dir, KP. A conceptual framework comprised of illegal measures (independent variable) and voting behavior (dependent variable). Data was collected through a pre-tested interview schedule; chi-square and Fisher exact tests were applied to get the results. Based on chi-square test statistics, the association between VB and illegal measures attributes was found significant as dismantled as the use of legal and illegal means in an election (P=0.026); made wealth especially (P=0.008); converted the overall politics into money politics (P=0.007); to coax poor voters deny their role in the decision-making process (P=0.037) respectively. At the multivariate level, results dismantled the associations between illegal measures, and VB was non-spurious for both males and females (while controlling the gender of the respondents). Corrupt electoral practices, raising campaign funds by making promises of illegal benefits, provoking agents of influencing VB negatively in order to conduct elections in a very free and fair manner, effective policies along with the implementation of court verdicts along with some moral values in the code of conduct against illegal measures are the needs of the day in light of the present study.

Public attitudes toward external democracy promotion in Africa

ABSTRACT The proliferation of democratic rule in Africa has been accompanied by external involvement in fostering democracy. The African Union along with various regional organizations have included clauses in their treaties calling for member-state adherence to democratic governance. Moreover, African regional organizations have used punishments such as membership suspension, sanctions, and military force to motivate states experiencing democratic reversals to change course. However, despite these trends, there has been no investigation into how Africans perceive external involvement in fostering democracy. This study remedies this gap by evaluating public attitudes toward such external pressure using the sixth round of the Afrobarometer survey. Specifically, the study explores how individual assessment of electoral practice and a country's and its neighbours' history of unconstitutional changes of government influence approval of external democracy promotion. This article lays the foundation for further investigating the roots of legitimacy of actions taken by international organizations aimed at promoting good governance and democracy.

“Epitaph” to Election Commissions of Municipalities

The article discusses the institution of election commissions of municipalities — its formation, development, problems that have arisen, as well as the causes and consequences of dismantling this institution. The recent completion of the work of the only municipal bodies actualizes the need to study its role and significance in municipal electoral campaigns. The legal framework of the entire period of activity of election commissions of municipalities has been studied in details. A significant amount of statistical material was used to analyze the place and role of these commissions in ensuring the right of citizens to local self-government. The author uses not only statistical and system-structural methods, but also the method of included observation throughout almost the entire period of functioning of the right-wing institute. It was concluded that despite the inclusion of local self-government into the unified system of public authority and the reduction of electoral practices at the local level of government, the abolition of the institution of municipal election commissions was insufficiently considered and justified.

Malcolm CROOK, How the French Learned to Vote. A History of Electoral Practice in France

Malcolm CROOK, How the French Learned to Vote. A History of Electoral Practice in France

Zasada tajności głosowania w wyborach do Sejmu PRL I kadencji z 26 października 1952 r.

The article describes one of the essential elements of the electoral process, i.e. the principle of secret voting in the elections to the Sejm of the Polish People’s Republic (in Polish PRL) of the first term. The overt actions of the authorities taken in the legal and political sphere, i.e. regulations, declarations, and election propaganda, were analysed. These actions were then confronted with the electoral practice, i.e. the voting on 26 October 1952, and the accompanying parapolitical abuses, which are the hidden relations between the public sphere of the state (the Polish United Workers’ Party, in Polish PZPR) and the political processes and arrangements occurring outside official politics. The juxtaposition of these two spheres – overt and covert – made it possible to present a real picture of the functioning of the principle of secrecy in the elections to the Sejm of the Polish People’s Republic of the first term.

The Evolution of Electoral Technologies in Germany and the Bundestag Elections of 1998

The subject of the study is the federal election campaigns of the main competitors in the German Bundestag elections of 1998 - the CDU and the SPD. The object of the study is the evolution of German political culture related to the practice of conducting federal election campaigns. The purpose of this work is to analyze the election campaigns of the CDU and the SPD in 1998 to identify new elements of the professionalized, "Americanized", modernized campaign of the SPD, which, against the background of the traditional CDU campaign, contributed to the victory of the Social Democrats and the coming to power in Germany of the "red-green" coalition led by Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder. The scientific novelty of the article is that the effectiveness of election campaigns is considered as one of the significant factors influencing the outcome of the party-political struggle, and the 1998 elections are considered as one of the turning points in the evolution of German political culture in terms of party election campaigns. The successful SPD campaign, which abandoned many traditional elements and actively borrowed new electoral practices from the United States and Great Britain, had a significant impact on the modernization of the forms and methods of electoral struggle of the main parties in Germany in the next two decades.

Social policy in the programs of the political parties of Chile: the experience of content analysis

The presidential, parliamentary and regional elections were held at the same time, on November 21, 2021 in Chile. Earlier in the same period, elections were held throughout the Latin American region. Extreme political fragmentation was recorded during these elections. Also, a feature of electronic processes can be called socio-political instability and the associated high degree of protest potential of citizens. The article attempts to conduct a comparative analysis of the text of the programs of the political parties of Chile. The key areas of the studied documents were identified, while the political, economic, and social components were substantiated. The content analysis of the texts of the programs of the political parties of Chile was carried out, the share of content units analyzed by spheres was revealed. The conclusions about the increasing importance of the topics of social policy, social protection and social security in the era of a new, pandemic, world order were verified. Visualization and statistical analysis of the results were made using the SigmaPlot program, version 12.5. The author's conclusions about the importance of the social sphere are also confirmed by electoral practice. An extremely interesting election took place in Chile, dividing the electoral field almost in half on ideological grounds. At the same time, all participants in the electoral process used the “social theme”. Reconciliation and the development of a national consensus will be the task of the young (at the time of the election, only 35 years old) President Gabriel Boric, he successfully integrated accents of left-liberal and social orientation in his election program. Recent events in Chile add relevance to the study: a referendum on the adoption of a new, socially oriented constitution of the country is scheduled for September 4, 2022. Also, another wave of protests, also recorded in September 2022, is directly related to such a social segment as education.

The Impact of Consociationalism on Female Political Representation: The Case Study of Mauritius

ABSTRACT By prioritising ethnic representation over gender representation, consociationalism is often criticised as being ‘gender blind’. This trend is very apparent in Mauritius’s consociational democracy as ethnicity is deeply entrenched in its different electoral practices ranging from the nominations of candidates, coalitions negotiations, the influence of religious organisations, the ethnicisation of the main political parties and voters’ perceptions. The focus on ethnic politics is so overwhelming that it side-tracks other important issues in the Mauritian political system like persistent inequalities in gender representation. This research relies on data from the Office of the Electoral Commissioner in Mauritius and Statistics Mauritius to analyse gender representation over the last 12 general elections. The findings show that the problem of low female political representation lies in a faulty institutional architecture designed to cater for ethnic representation without due regard to the problem of gender inequality. This problem is amplified by a serious lack of political will and consensus on an electoral reform that can correct this problem.

Электоральный абсентеизм молодежи Калининградской области и его социально-политические основания

The article is devoted to the study of the involvement of the youth of the Kaliningrad Region in the political process. The authors study the differences between the youth groups of the region in terms of the degree of interest in politics and electoral activity. They found out that young people with secondary specialized education, as well as respondents, who are neutral about the policy of the authorities, most often do not show interest in political life and do not participate in voting. The authors identify main reasons contributing to the refusal of various social groups of young people in the Kaliningrad Region to participate in electoral practices.

The (un)making of electoral transparency through technology: The 2017 Kenyan presidential election controversy.

Marked by the killing of a senior ICT professional working for the Electoral Commission and the invalidation of the presidential election by the Supreme Court, the 2017 Kenyan elections make for a good case through which to study how digital technologies shape contemporary electoral practice. This article examines the practice of electoral transparency through technology and argues that it can be conceived as a socio-technical device based both on distancing people from knowledge of the electoral infrastructure and on staging a simplified discourse on public access to the electoral infrastructure. Drawing on interviews with key actors in election technology implementation and ethnographic observations of public events around it, the article argues that digital technology has had three sets of implications for elections. First, it has shaped the electoral infrastructure and the nature of the final result (now a paper and digital hybrid). Second, it has shaped the distribution of knowledge among electoral professionals, giving a central role to ICT actors, objects, and knowledge in the definition of electoral transparency. Third, the centrality of ICTs in elections and the order of knowledge they bring are highly controversial and criticized by other electoral actors who demand for material proof for understanding the inner workings of elections.

The Role of Foreign Aid in the Dissemination of Civic and Voter Education during 1995 – 2020 General Elections in Tanzania

This article examines the extent to which foreign aid played a role in shaping the electoral practices related to the dissemination of civic and voter education in the past six multiparty general elections conducted in Tanzania from 1995 to 2020. The study employed a qualitative research approach and used primary data through key informant interviews. Secondary data were obtained from a documentary review. The findings reveal that in 1995, 2000, 2005, and 2010 foreign donors had a significant influence on determining the content of civic and voter education materials used to conduct the exercise. In the 2015 elections, donors' funds were reduced significantly and in the 2020 election, the budget was fully government-funded. The study recommends that the Electoral Management Bodies (EMBs) should establish elections consolidated funds that will be funded by the government yearly to ensure the availability of sufficient funds to conduct the exercise and ultimately limit the intervention of foreign donors in the dissemination of civic and voter education.

Russian Constitutionalism and Elections in Noble Assemblies under Alexander I

In historiography, the Russian constitutionalism of the first quarter of the nineteenth century has traditionally been considered a result of the ideological influence of the European political and legal theories and the content of foreign constitutions known to contemporaries. What escaped researchers’ attention was the influence of the existing experience of holding elections in noble assemblies which the authors of constitutional projects referred to as a basic model for forming bodies of class representation. Electoral practices allowed the emperor and his immediate environment to estimate the degree of formation of one of the most significant conditions for introducing a constitution in Russia, i. e. the fact that the eligible for political rights possessed necessary moral qualities, desire, and abilities for partnership in the development and discussion of laws. The author analyses archival materials from the Russian State Historical Archive, acts, and M. M. Speransky’s private correspondence with V. P. Kochubey. For the first time in national historiography, the article presents recurring problem situations deemed by contemporaries as critical, interfering with the normal functioning of election systems. The most significant of them was the impossibility to draw up electoral lists in due time and authentically, reveal and prevent facts of a deliberate distortion of data on property, cases of false purchase and sale of manors; lack of the necessary number of noblemen who would correspond to all to the criteria established by the law and have the skills required; conspiracy or bribery of electors by the persons interested in the victory of a candidate; cases of “evasion of duty” by already elected candidates. Such cases were treated as a manifestation of unworthy behaviour of noblemen who turned the election procedure into an instrument of negative selection of candidates. Finally, the author concludes that in the government circles of Russia in the first quarter of the nineteenth century, together with the understanding of the inefficiency of the existing local management system, the negative experience of electoral practices was an argument for the inopportuneness of introducing a constitution.

Free, fair and credible? An assessment of Kenya 2017 Election

Periodic, free, fair, and credible elections are one of the undisputed principles of liberal democracy. Kenya embraced multiparty democracy at independence in 1963 and has since used periodic elections as a means of selecting leaders to office. Focusing on Kenya’s national election held on 8 August 2017, this paper evaluates the fundamental requirements for a free, fair, and credible election. To this end, the paper assesses Kenya’s electoral legal framework and its application during the 2017 national elections. In addition, the paper uses primary data by Afrobarometer to explore public opinion on the performance of the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC), political parties, and the media towards free, fair, and credible elections. This study finds that despite some institutional challenges, Kenya’s 2017 national elections were conducted under a comprehensive electoral legal framework and met the threshold of free, fair, and credible as affirmed by the citizenry through Afrobarometer’s public opinion survey. The positive assessment of universally accepted electoral practice indicators by most of the people affirms that, notable challenges notwithstanding, Kenya’s 2017 national elections were free, fair, and credible, thus endorsing the legitimacy and authority of elected leaders. This argument is cognisant of the election outcome as a fundamental factor in shaping public perception of freeness and fairness in the electoral process.

Проблема эффективности российской избирательной системы: политико-философский анализ

The article is devoted to the problem of implementing the criteria for the technical effectiveness of democratic elections in the national electoral legislation. The main attention is paid to three criteria of the technical efficiency of the domestic electoral system: the accessibility of voting, the freedom of voting and the objectivity of the vote count. The authors substantiate the thesis that, in general, the normative support for the democratic nature of domestic elections contains a sufficient potential for technical efficiency. At the same time, significant potential for its improvement is recognized in the direction of greater ensuring the coincidence of electoral practice with electoral legislation. In this regard, it is noted that it is necessary to improve legislative norms designed to prevent serious violations of the voting procedure and distortion of the will of ordinary voters. It is also noted the need to improve the legal support for the use of the GAS Elections system when counting votes and when conducting remote electronic voting.

A Polish Invention or a Copy of the Soviet Model? Electoral Practices during Parliamentary Elections in Poland under the Communist Rule (1944–1980)

One of the main characteristics of the Soviet domination sphere in Europe after the Second World War was the unification of political systems of the countries within the Soviet Union. This paper examines the Soviet impact on the electoral system of the People's Republic of Poland, a country often considered to have been the most unique among the Eastern European states. This article argues that although there were some important differences between the electoral codes in the USSR and communist-led Poland, the effects of the elections in both countries were the same: popular voting could not pose any threat to the power of their communist parties. This resulted from practices – similar in both countries – not included in the electoral law. This leads to the conclusion that the differences between the elections in the Soviet Union and post-war Poland were rather illusory.

Ethics regulation by National Medical Commission: No reason for hope.

Over the last three decades, medical councils in India have come under fire for rampant corruption and failure in the governance of medical education and practice. In fact, this journal itself grew out of the disquiet felt by a section of medical professionals at the barefaced corruption they witnessed in electoral practices, when contesting elections to the Maharashtra Medical Council in 1992 [1]. That experience triggered a movement of doctors and non-medical individuals for reform in the governance of healthcare, resulting in the birth of this journal in 1993. This also helped advance the disciplines of bioethics and healthcare ethics and humanities in India.