The Advanced AI-Facing Voting System is an intelligent electronic voting solution that utilizes artificial intelligence and facial recognition technology to enhance the security, transparency, and efficiency of digital elections. Traditional voting systems face several challenges such as duplicate voting, impersonation, vote tampering, and manual errors. The proposed system integrates AI-based biometric authentication to verify voter identity before vote casting, thereby ensuring that only authorized individuals can participate in the election process.The system consists of voter, candidate, and admin modules. Facial images captured during voter registration are stored securely in the database. During voting, live facial images are verified using OpenCV and machine learning algorithms. After successful authentication, voters can securely cast their votes. The system also provides automatic vote counting, result generation, and election monitoring.The Advanced AI Facing Voting System improves election reliability, reduces manual effort, minimizes fraud, and increases transparency. The proposed solution provides a modern and secure approach for future digital election environments.

Optimal aborting and voting policy in shock-exposed weighted voting systems

This study focused on developing an Electronic Voting System for the Supreme Student Government (SSG) of a Maritime Higher Education Institution in Negros Occidental. The research was conducted in response to the limitations of the existing manual voting system, which was observed to be time-consuming, labour-intensive, prone to errors, and vulnerable to security issues. The study employed a descriptive research design, using a self-made validated questionnaire administered to selected respondents. Stratified random sampling was used to ensure representation across different departments and year levels. The evaluation of the manual voting system revealed inefficiencies in vote counting, delays in result generation, additional manpower requirements, and concerns regarding security and accuracy. On the other hand, the developed Electronic Voting System was evaluated using the ISO/IEC 25010 software quality model in terms of functional suitability, usability, reliability, performance efficiency, and security. The results showed that the system obtained an overall mean rating interpreted as "Excellent," indicating high acceptability among respondents. The findings suggest that the Electronic Voting System significantly improves election processes by enhancing efficiency, accuracy, and security while reducing workload and operational costs. The study concludes that the implementation of the system is beneficial in modernizing election procedures and improving overall election management.

Social and structural determinants of health and health inequities (SSDHHI) include upstream factors influencing policies that shape health. We conducted a qualitative case study of the 2023 passage of the Minnesota Child Tax Credit (CTC) to refine and extend an SSDHHI framework [Karatekin et al. (Re-politicizing the WHO’s social determinants of health framework. Health Promot Int 2024;39:daae122)] that centers power and the agents who use power to shape SSDHHI. We coded interviews with key players in the state administration, legislature, and advocacy organizations (N = 15); and related news items and hearings. We operationalized the framework’s components, including “Agents, Power, Governance, and Institutional Practices,” the “Election System,” and “Ideas” fueling narratives about the CTC. Using the results, we refined the framework by linking “Agents” and “Power”; considering the types, dimensions, and motivations for “Power”; pointing out components that need further clarification; and introducing bidirectional links between components. We extended the framework by including a temporal dimension to highlight historical roots and emphasizing the importance of the conjunctions of factors that affect SSDHHI. This framework can be used to analyze other SSDHHI and to guide action by practitioners, e.g., by identifying individual or institutional targets of interventions and strategies for obtaining and using “Power” to drive policy change and improve public health.

ABSTRACT This article examines the fifth European Parliament election since Malta joined the European Union through the lens of second-order election (SOE) theory. Drawing on party manifestoes, media, citizens’ priorities, electoral results, and preference transfers under single transferable vote system, we assess the extent to which the campaign and outcomes were shaped by domestic rather than European political dynamics. Campaign debates and media coverage were overwhelmingly domestically framed. Turnout remained high by EU standards but lower than in national elections. While the governing party experienced losses, small parties and independent candidates performed better than in national contests. Overall, the Maltese case provides support for SOE theory, while highlighting the growing role of abstention and ballot exhaustion as channels of second-order protest.

Replacing traditional plurality voting system with majority voting system enhances board accountability by making it easier for shareholders to remove and replace directors. Many U.S. states enacted legislation that enables shareholders to compel firms to adopt majority voting. Using the staggered adoption of U.S. state laws, we find that majority voting increases income-increasing earnings management, with firms portraying stronger performance to reduce director turnover risk. This effect is more pronounced when directors face greater re-election risk and CEOs have stronger ties to board members. Moreover, we find earnings expectations management as an alternative to earnings management. Following the legislative change, CEOs and CFOs receive higher short-term incentive pay and have higher earnings-per-share performance targets, suggesting a strategic shift toward earnings metrics. Overall, this study presents novel evidence that increased re-election pressure on directors motivates firms to engage in earnings management.

Towards patient-centered research in pregnancy-associated breast cancer: creating a science agenda through a priority-setting-partnership

ABSTRACT Under the Traffic Light Coalition government formed in 2021 by the SPD, Alliance 90/The Greens and the FDP, the electoral system for the German Bundestag was changed in 2023 for the fourth time since 2011. This article analyses the process and the outcome of this electoral system reform. On the one hand, the reform proposed by the Traffic Light Coalition appears more convincing in conceptual and technical terms than the corresponding attempts made by previous federal governments. On the other hand, the emergence of ‘vacant’ constituencies also has significant side effects that undermine the reform’s political acceptance. Given that the new federal government formed in 2025 and led by the CDU/CSU wants to reverse the 2023 reform, the institutional stability of the electoral system required for a representative democracy remains at risk.

In the United States, the voting system gives people the ability to voice their opinions about the policies and practices that affect their lives, health, and well-being, but those affected by intimate partner and sexual violence face substantial barriers to participating in this system. Many of the power and control tactics used by those who perpetrate relationship violence actively work against survivors' ability to vote and otherwise express their thoughts and views, not only during the relationship, but even after it ends. Address Confidentiality Policies (ACP) are one way that states and territories have attempted to lessen safety concerns associated with voting among survivors of violence by allowing them to use alternate addresses for public records requirements. However, low public awareness of policies, inconsistencies in approach, and barriers to participation have kept ACPs from being as successful as they could be. This perspectives article summarizes ACPs across the United States and advocates for more consistent, empowering, and universal application of ACPs to guarantee that survivors of violence and others that fear making their address known can participate equally in the voting system and ensure that their concerns are represented.

Representative democracy in the United States relies on election systems that transmit votes into representatives in three key bodies: the two chambers of the federal legislature (House of Representatives and Senate) and the Electoral College, which selects the president and vice-president. This happens through a process of re-weighting based on geographic units (congressional districts and states) that can introduce substantial distortion. In this article, I propose quantitative measures of this distortion that can be applied to demographic groups, using Census data, to assess and visualize these distorting effects. These include the absolute weight of votes under these systems and the excess population represented in the bodies through the distortions. Visualizing these metrics from 2000–2020 shows persistent malapportionment in key demographic categories. White (non-Hispanic) residents, residents of rural areas, and owner-occupied households are overrepresented in the Senate and Electoral College; Black and Hispanic people, urban dwellers, and renter-occupied households are underrepresented. For urban residents, this underrepresentation is the equivalent of 25 million fewer residents in the Senate and nearly 5 million in the Electoral College. I discuss implications for further research on the effects of these distortions and their interactions with other features of the electoral system.

This study examines how linguistic formulations influence our perceptions of advice within the computer-mediated context of Reddit, bridging the gap between linguistics and other disciplines. A between-subjects experiment was designed to both explore a selection of advice-giving moves on Reddit and to better understand Reddit's upvote system. Using frameworks from communication and social psychology to examine the underlying effect of linguistic variables, 180 participants were provided with an advice scenario and then invited to emulate the Reddit voting system, rate the advice on a variety of psychometric dimensions, and reflect qualitatively on the advice in the experiment and about advice-giving as a communicative act. This paper reports on how participants perceived the voting system and used it to evaluate advice, along with the quantitative aspects of the experiment. Results show that the manipulation of advice-giving moves has a significant effect on perceptions of the advice-giver's warmth and competence, as well as the advice message's feasibility, limitations, and positive politeness perceptions; all ultimately influencing whether one will take up the advice. There is also evidence that Reddit's upvote system, as a binary affordance, has numerous, graded, pragmatic meanings that are not only obscured by the way the feature is operationalized, but also extend beyond the intention of the site's creators. • Interdisciplinary research on linguistic forms' effect on our evaluations is required. • Why people use paralinguistic digital affordances like Reddit upvotes needs more study. • Experiments help reveal the impact of different linguistic units on our perceptions. • Advice moves shape how advice is perceived across psychological and communicative domains. • Upvotes carry varied pragmatic meanings and influence how we interact online.

This paper presents a secure web-based voting system using blockchain technology to ensure transparency, integrity, and reliability in digital elections. The system is developed using the React.js, Node.js, Firebase, and Ethereum blockchain integrated through MetaMask and deployed on a test network using the Hardhat. Users authenticate via Gmail-based OTP verification and are allowed to cast votes through a user-friendly interface. To enhance security, the system captures the user’s facial image during vote submission and stores data securely on Firebase, while hashed records are maintained on the blockchain to ensure immutability. The system enforces a strict one-user-one-vote policy, preventing duplicate voting. An admin panel allows candidate management without revealing vote counts during the election process. Result is displayed graphically after voting concludes, and encrypted data can be exported for analysis. Additionally, a voice-assisted feature in Hindi improves accessibility for illiterate users, making it inclusive and efficient.

This study examines the legal construction of women’s political rights within Indonesia’s electoral system through a normative-doctrinal approach grounded in statutory interpretation, legal principles, and doctrinal analysis. The research focuses on the coherence between constitutional guarantees, particularly under the 1945 Constitution, and the regulatory framework governing elections, including Law Number 7 of 2017 and Law Number 7 of 1984 as a ratification instrument of CEDAW. By employing grammatical, systematic, and teleological interpretation, the study identifies normative tensions between formal equality and substantive representation in the implementation of affirmative action policies. The findings reveal that despite the existence of a 30 percent quota requirement in candidate nomination, structural and regulatory inconsistencies continue to limit the effective realization of women’s political participation. Comparative insights drawn from international data further demonstrate that Indonesia’s position reflects partial compliance with global standards of gender representation. This study contributes to legal scholarship by proposing a reconstruction of electoral norms that strengthens enforceability, harmonizes regulatory provisions, and advances substantive gender equality within democratic governance.

This article examines the 2022 Brazilian presidential campaign to explore the dynamic relationship between political alignment and electoral trust. We argue that trust in elections is not solely a function of partisanship but is also influenced by exposure to elite narratives and citizens’ expectations about who will win. Using a five-wave panel survey conducted during the 2022 election in Brazil, we analyze both between-individual differences and within-individual changes in vote intention and trust in Brazil’s electronic voting system. Employing within–between models, we separate stable partisan differences from changes associated with individual-level shifts in political alignment. We show that then-President Jair Bolsonaro’s voters consistently expressed lower trust in the electronic voting system compared to other voters. Yet, among Bolsonaro voters, trust in the electronic voting system was significantly higher for those who expected him to win and lower for those who expected him to lose. Critically, exploiting within-person variation, we show that switching vote preference toward Bolsonaro is associated with declines in trust. These findings suggest that elite cues and outcome expectations interact to shape electoral trust.

ABSTRACT One of the stated advantages of the Single Transferable Vote (STV) voting system in deeply divided societies is that voters are given the opportunity to express support for a range of parties. Proponents argue that this will result in voters casting their second or lower preferences across community lines in ways that encourage support for moderate parties and reduce conflict. This study examines patterns of vote transfers in Northern Ireland in the thirteen local elections since 1973, to determine whether voters are transferring support across the ethno-national divide, and whether such transferring has increased over time. This analysis will provide evidence regarding the effectiveness of STV in encouraging support for moderate parties and cross-community transfers in deeply divided societies. It concludes that there has been a modest but significant increase in transfers from moderate parties in one community to the other, and from moderates in both communities to non-aligned parties. This has played an important role in facilitating moderation in Northern Ireland politics.

The growing demand for secure and transparent electoral systems has intensified due to increasing concerns over election fraud, with reports indicating that digital and identity-based fraud impacts millions of voting processes globally, while e-governance and smart voting technologies are projected to grow at over 18% annually. These environments require tamper-proof mechanisms, efficient monitoring, and rapid fraud detection to ensure fairness and accuracy. Traditional voting systems, whether paper-based or basic electronic machines, are prone to issues such as identity fraud, vote manipulation, lack of transparency, and delayed result processing. Furthermore, conventional systems lack multi-layer authentication, real-time alerts, and centralized monitoring, making them vulnerable to unauthorized activities. To overcome these limitations, the proposed biometric and CAM based Evoting system utilizes the ESP32 microcontroller to implement a secure, IoT-enabled voting framework with predictive fraud prevention. The system integrates RFID authentication, fingerprint biometric verification, and camera-based monitoring to ensure multi-factor voter validation. A keypad-based interface allows users to cast votes, while an LCD provides real-time guidance and feedback. Suspicious activities such as unauthorized access or repeated attempts trigger buzzer alerts and instant SMS notifications via a GSM module, with all events logged on the IoT platform for analysis. Real-time vote updates and secure result dissemination enhance transparency, while a controlled polling switch ensures proper election closure. This intelligent system significantly improves election security, prevents fraud, and provides a reliable, scalable solution for modern digital voting systems.

ABSTRACT The performance of parties in elections does not necessarily reflect the level of support they enjoy among the electorate. Election outcomes depend on how voter preferences are aggregated, and the choice of the electoral method can have a greater impact than the preferences themselves. As a corollary of this finding, election results may be positively or negatively correlated with voter evaluations of parties, or they may be uncorrelated. Using short-term and long-term data from Germany, this paper demonstrates that voter preferences and party performance are interconnected in parliamentary elections under a PR voting system. Our findings challenge widely held narratives about the crisis of social democratic parties and the alleged rise in support for right-wing parties.

Summary How many different ways can people share power? More specifically, how many fundamentally-different weighted voting systems exist with n players? In this article, we answer that question completely for n ≤ 6 and discuss why the general problem is computationally-difficult. While working toward the main result, we introduce a partial ordering of coalitions in weighted voting systems, analyze coalitions that are always bound to lose, and present a method for deriving a weighted voting system from a certain set of minimal winning coalitions.

ABSTRACT Devolution to Scotland and Wales was a central plank of the New Labour government’s constitutional reform agenda. Yet despite Welsh devolution only being narrowly won at the 1997 referendum by the small margin of just 6,721 votes, almost immediately there would be calls to rethink and revise the devolution dispensation given to Wales and after only a year of the Assembly’s existence a Labour-Liberal Democrat ‘partnership agreement’ coalition would commit to establishing an independent commission to examine the Assembly’s powers and electoral system. Drawing on an extensive range of primary and secondary source material, this article explores why after only a few years of devolution being in existence, such a Commission was created and why the UK Government and the Labour Party’s leadership in Wales responded to the Commission in the way that they did. It will also explore why what ultimately emerged from the Labour party’s internal processes, and from the UK and Welsh government’s deliberations, the Government of Wales Act 2006 would bear only a passing resemblance to the Commission’s proposals. In doing so, this paper deepens our understanding of the story of constitution making in Wales and the story of Welsh devolution since 1997.

ABSTRACT This article uses the pyrrhic victory concept as an analytical lens to examine how repeated political successes generate cumulative structural costs in Zimbabwe's electoral authoritarian system under the Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF). While authoritarian electoral practices date to the 1980s, their most consequential form emerged after 2000, when ZANU-PF consolidated dominance through coercion, patronage, and institutional capture. Drawing on secondary data including observer reports, scholarly analyses, and policy documents, the study analyses six electoral cycles between 2000 and 2023. The analysis shows that these strategies preserved incumbency but increased fiscal pressures, reduced institutional autonomy, and deepened reliance on coercive enforcement and resource-based patronage. Zimbabwe illustrates a pattern of authoritarian endurance in which the regime survives under increasingly constrained conditions. These victories have locked ZANU-PF into a pattern of rule that depletes state capacity, deepens economic fragility, and erodes democratic governance even as its hold on power remains intact.