Past Elections Research Articles

Oligarchic Hegemony in Elections: A Criminal Offense Undermining Integrity and Threatening Democracy in Indonesia

The election of the President and Vice President serves as a fundamental pillar of democracy and a crucial moment in the democratic process in Indonesia. However, in recent decades, the hegemony of oligarchs has posed a significant threat to the fairness and integrity of the electoral system. Oligarchs, wielding substantial power and influence, frequently manipulate the electoral process for personal and group interests, often resorting to criminal activities such as bribery, political intimidation, and the misuse of state resources. These actions undermine the legitimacy of elections and erode public trust in the democratic process. This research seeks to analyze the methods employed by oligarchs in the presidential election as criminal acts that damage the integrity of the electoral process in Indonesia. Using a normative legal approach, this research examines various written sources, including books, journals, and empirical data from past elections. The findings reveal a consistent pattern of legal violations by oligarchs that significantly compromise the electoral process. Based on these findings, the research recommends reforms aimed at strengthening the enforcement of criminal laws related to elections and enhancing the capacity of electoral oversight institutions to prevent oligarchic interference. These reforms are crucial for preserving an inclusive and fair democracy in Indonesia.

From public health to political repression: COVID-19 lockdown measure in Hong Kong's opposition districts

Repression comes with costs, such as reducing regime legitimacy and citizen conformity. The COVID-19 pandemic was an opportunity and a pretext for authoritarian regimes to repress their populations at a low cost. This paper examines the case of Hong Kong, where restriction-testing declarations (RTDs) were used as a lockdown measure to facilitate mandatory testing for the virus from January 2021 to September 2022. Despite the government's claim that RTDs were implemented for public health reasons, statistical analyses showed that Hong Kong districts that opposed the regime or those with a mobilization legacy were more likely to be subject to RTDs, with the opposition district effect present only when COVID-19 infections were low. These RTDs highlight the authoritarian regime's tradeoff in using a nonpolitical measure to achieve its political aims and illustrates the enduring impact of past election and mobilization activities on the choice of selective repression sites in Hong Kong.

The effect of political songs on choice of candidate, political ideology, and party loyalty among young Nigerians

ABSTRACT Using political songs as a campaign strategy during the election period in Nigeria has exceeded other campaign activities like posters, jingles, and debates. However, there is a need for more information about how listening to political songs affects youths’ behaviour during elections. Like the past elections, political songs played a role during Nigeria's March 2023 general elections. Politicians seek the help of musicians to distribute campaign messages through songs or to compress long speeches and political manifestos into songs so that the message could reach a wider audience. The study employed a grounded theory approach to analyse interviews with young Nigerians aged 18–29 on the influence of listening to political songs on their choice of candidates, political ideology, and party loyalty. The findings indicate that listening to political songs influences the choice of candidates, political ideology, and party loyalty, especially among those with weak political affiliations.

THE IMPACT OF THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION ON IDX COMPOSITE PREDICTIONS USING LONG SHORT TERM MEMORY

An analysis of the performance of Indonesia's capital market, or Indonesia Stock Exchange (IDX), shows significant growth in recent years, with market capitalization increasing dramatically from IDR 679.95 trillion in 2004 to IDR 11,674.06 trillion by 2023. The IDX plays an important role in the Indonesian economy by facilitating capital formation and providing opportunities for investors to diversify their portfolios. However, the capital market is vulnerable to political events, such as presidential elections, which can affect national stability and economic performance. An analysis of the stock index performance before the presidential election showed a significant bullish trend. Still, given the considerable impact of political events, such as presidential elections, on financial markets, this study aims to analyze and forecast the performance of the IDX Composite by examining historical data from past election years, we provide insights and predictions in highlighting how the LSTM model accommodates these political factors in its forecasts. IDX Composite closing price forecasting was conducted using the bidirectional LSTM model to anticipate the impact. The analysis results show that this model can predict the weekly closing price of the IDX Composite with an error of 1.04%, with estimated stock price fluctuations in the next 8 weeks in the range of 6619.755 to 6812.722

VOTES AND VALUATIONS: THE IMPACT OF LOK SABHA ELECTIONS ON STOCK MARKET

This paper investigates the impact of the 2024 Indian Lok Sabha elections on the stock market, a relationship of significant interest to economists, investors, and policymakers. Given the pivotal role of the Lok Sabha in shaping India's economic policies and legislative landscape, the outcomes of these elections are expected to have substantial implications for market dynamics. Historical data analysis reveals that past elections have consistently led to increased market volatility and activity, reflecting investor sentiment towards political stability and economic policy continuity. This study employs a combination of quantitative and qualitative approaches, including historical data analysis, event studies, and predictive modeling, to forecast potential market reactions. Key factors such as political stability, proposed economic reforms, global economic environment, and investor sentiment are examined to understand their influence on market behavior. The 2024 elections are especially significant as they occur during a period of post-pandemic economic recovery, technological advancements, and evolving geopolitical relations. By analyzing these factors, the paper aims to provide insights into how different election outcomes might affect various sectors, investment strategies, and overall market performance. The findings are intended to aid investors in navigating the election period, making informed decisions, and understanding the broader implications of political events on economic stability and growth. This comprehensive analysis contributes to the existing literature on political economy and market behavior, offering valuable perspectives for stakeholders involved in the Indian financial markets.

Participatory Democracy in Southern Africa: Explaining Botswana’s Exceptionalism

Botswana has had fair and stable elections since its independence in 1966. It has a relatively high standard of living, a relatively well-functioning welfare state, and relatively low levels of government corruption. Voter participation is among the highest in the world, topping 80 percent in the past elections. Access to education and healthcare is free to all citizens. How can we best explain Botswana’s exceptionalism in the political, economic, and social realms, and what policy lessons does the case of Botswana contain? This article shows that it is Botswana’s millennial tradition of direct village democracy, kgotla, that best explains its exceptional performance. I visited Botswana in May of 2023 to evaluate the importance of participatory democracy in Botswana and assess its explanatory power. When comparing local participation to other, potentially relevant causal factors, I find that local political participation provides the most robust explanation for good governance in Botswana. In Botswana, citizens are able to hold their elected officials accountable, learn how politics works by acquiring the necessary technical knowledge (techne) through participating in regular, monthly public assemblies, and, as a result, make better-informed political decisions.

Economic Impact of United States Presidential Election Years: A Comparative Analysis

The United States Presidential elections are held every four years, and they bring a time of economic uncertainty that raises many questions domestically and internationally. In this essay, the relationship between the economy and the presidential election years will be analyzed. Some of those include changes in the investment markets like stocks and real estate, the expectation of the president's policies and how they will affect the economy, what the consumers should expect, how each presidential candidate (Donald Trump and Kamala Harris) has different policies, and how those policies will affect the economy of the US and internationally. By looking at stats from past elections and trends, the confusing connection between the economy and the years that have a presidential election can be further understood, showing how the outcome of United States presidential elections impacts the growth and the power of the economy.

Foreign Election Interference in Africa’s De-Democratization Culture

The 2016 USA elections appear to have made Russia the “poster-boy” for election interference across the globe, allegedly using tools such as disinformation, misinformation, mal-information, email hacking, leaking of confidential information, and others. All such activities are a threat to national self-determination, democracy, and the autonomy of the people. Since then, elections in developing democracies in Africa are also alleged to have experienced interference by the usual suspect: Russia. In Africa, the actors of election interferences have been expanded beyond Russia to include foreign countries and companies in past elections in Kenya, Madagascar, Mozambique, Nigeria, and Ghana. The next general elections in Ghana are in December 2024. In the previous general elections in Ghana, there were no significant allegations of election interference, although, in 2020, the specter of foreign election interference emerged in the political discourse. The actions of the domestic actors to de-democratize elections were mentioned selectively. It may be simplistic to argue in favor of election non-interference in Ghana’s political business cycle every four years since 1992, but the allegations are not supported by evidence and are merely anecdotal and subjective or based on geopolitical realism. What can be proven is the de-democratization of incumbents and other domestic political actors in domestic elections through open vote-buying by politicians and vote-rigging by incumbent political leaders. In such a political dysmorphic situation, it is difficult to accuse any entity of being the mastermind of election interferences in Africa.

Voters’ Expectations in Constituency Elections without Local Polls

Abstract How do voters form accurate expectations about the strength of political candidates in constituency elections if there are no reliable constituency polls available? We argue that voters can use national election polls and past election results to increase the accuracy of their expectations. A survey experiment during the German federal election of 2021 confirms that the provision of national election polls and past results increases the accuracy of voters’ expectations. The analysis further shows that voters leverage the information to update their beliefs. The results have relevant implications for debates about belief formation in low-information environments.

Institutionalization of Ḥisbah: A Means to Achieve Peaceful and Credible Elections in Nigeriaa

The important pillar of the so-called democracy, which is an election, has been violent and marked by problems ranging from rigging, vote buying, illegal printing of voters’ cards, illegal possession of ballot boxes, stuffing of ballot boxes, underage voting, and falsification of election results to manipulation of results in Nigeria. Thus, the Nigerian experience with elections since independence has been quite challenging despite that conduct of elections is the only acceptable means through which the citizens of a democratic country can choose their representatives. This paper therefore appraises one of the important institutions introduced by Islam to cater to the promotion of good and prohibition of evil (ḥisbah) in society with a view to underline the importance of its institutionalization to stem the menace of electoral malpractices in Nigeria. The reason is that the institution of ḥisbah was successfully deployed during the classical periods of Islam to arrest cases of cheating in the marketplaces as well as the public dispositions. The study employs a qualitative research methodology based on literature review. Data collected from a variety of books, periodicals, and other sources, were then subjected to analysis. The findings of the study reveal that the electoral malpractices that characterized the past elections will be overcome and credible elections will be achieved if ḥisbah is institutionalized in the country. It concludes that the advocacy for its introduction in Nigeria is not an attempt to Islamize the country but a yearning call for the injection of an efficient institution that can change the narrative of electoral fraud in Nigeria as it was practiced in the Northern part of the country before its colonization.

Geo-enabled election for efficient management of election processes in Du District of Plateau

One of the major reasons adduced by the military junta in the recent waves of coup-d’etat experienced in Africa and some West-Africa sub-region was floored election process hence the need for geo-enabled election process that is vivid. The aim of this article is to geo-enabled the entire election process by delineating and standardizing electoral Constituencies and Wards to a convenient size that is relative to the demographic characteristics. The fidelity of an election process in Nigeria can only be preserved and sustained by geo-enabling the entire process in phases. The recent past election trajectory in Nigeria revealed different election maleficent that defiled all election protocols and standards. The three key stakeholders involved in election processes may not be exonerated from these election improprieties especially the political pundits and the election management body (INEC), because of their varying interests; although there are some gullible electorates willing to mortgage their votes for a morsel of bread. The article demonstrated a proto-type geo-enabled election process of Du district (constituency) in Jos South LGA of Plateau State by using GIS and GPNAS to structure both spatial and attribute election data in order to delineate effectively constituency and ward boundaries and carry all stakeholders along. The result include Constituency map with a well defined boundary, roads linking ballot places; ward maps and table showing the geographic coordinates of ballot areas. The article has unveiled to all the stakeholders what to expect from the election umpire, navigate to ballot places and how to plan effectively before, during and after election.

Beyond the Ballot: A Comparative Analysis of Political Microtargeting Practices and Regulations in Kenya and Nigeria

Technological advancements have significantly impacted the political world. Unlike the traditional means of conducting campaigns, technology makes it possible to conduct data-driven campaigns on a larger scale and with high levels of specificity. For political parties, better clarity leads to hyper-individualized communication in a process known as microtargeting. Critics argue that political microtargeting can directly manipulate and suppress voters, exacerbate polarization, perpetuate misinformation, and indirectly lead to long-term effects by encouraging political parties to ignore individuals whom they deem unlikely to vote or those who are digitally excluded. This paper studies political microtargeting in Kenya and Nigeria because of data-driven campaigns that have been observed in these jurisdictions in the past and due to the increased reliance on social media platforms that political actors are utilizing to influence voters. It argues that political microtargeting is an issue of concern and therefore, using Kenya and Nigeria, it pushes the agenda that countries in the Global South should implement policies and regulations to curtail the negative impact of the practice. To examine the extent of political microtargeting in both Kenya and Nigeria, this paper employs a multi-phase approach that involves an analysis of paid Facebook advertisements in both countries during the past election periods.

COMMUNITY SATISFACTION TOWARDS POLITICAL REPRESENTATIVES: EXPLAINING THE ROLE OF GOOD GOVERNANCE PRACTICES

This study was to investigate the role of good governance on the community's satisfaction with the legislative institution, i.e., the state assemblyman. Good governance is often perceived as political stability for the effectiveness of administration. Good governance serves as the core element in administration, including political representation in Malaysia. In previous elections, the political representation trend shows a new pattern of citizens’ inclination. Citizens had removed some of the under-performed representatives in the past elections due to dissatisfaction with the political representatives' performance. This study looked at how good governance impacted transparency, accountability, and responsiveness in relation to community satisfaction with administrative services performed by political representatives. This study used a survey through a purposive sampling technique (n-396). In order to prove hypotheses, the regression analysis technique was applied. Based on the results, the relationships among all independent and dependent variables are positive and significant, implying good governance plays a positive and significant role in affecting the level of satisfaction. Therefore, it is important for political representatives in Malaysia to strive for good governance in order to build trust and confidence among citizens and promote a healthy and functioning democracy.

Confidence in US Elections After the Big Lie

This paper examines how individual-level partisanship and state-level factors affect perceptions of electoral integrity in the United States. We find that evaluations of the integrity of the 2020 US presidential election national outcome were only modestly conditioned by the quality of election administration in a person’s state. Perceptions of electoral legitimacy were much more substantially conditioned by motivated reasoning associated with a person’s partisanship, the partisan context Republicans resided in, and Republican partisans’ residence in a swing-state where final results from 2020 were delayed due to late-counted ballots. Overall, estimated effects of the quality of election administration on confidence in elections are null or modest. Partisan factors associated with Donald Trump’s “Big Lie” about the 2020 US presidential election were the strongest forces predicting lack of confidence in US elections and perceptions that election officials were altering results. These factors were not evident in 2016. We discuss how these findings may reflect a fundamental alteration of attitudes among Republican voters and elites about the legitimacy of democratic elections in the US, rather than reflecting cyclical variation in partisan confidence associated with which party won the past election.

Coordination and Bandwagon Effects: How Past Rankings Shape the Behavior of Voters and Candidates

Candidates' placements in polls and past elections can be powerful coordination devices for parties and voters. Using a regression discontinuity design in French two-round elections, we show that candidates who place first in the first round are more likely to stay in the race and win than those who placed second. These effects are even larger for ranking second versus third, and also present for third versus fourth. They stem from allied parties agreeing on which candidate should drop out, voters coordinating their choice, and the bandwagon effect of wanting to vote for the winner. We find similar results across 19 other countries. (JEL D72, D83, D91, K16)

Legitimate questions: Public perceptions of the legitimacy of US presidential election outcomes

Numerous polls show most Republicans view the 2020 election as illegitimate, but we know relatively little about legitimacy perceptions among losing candidates’ supporters in past elections. I analyze 76 polls asking about the legitimacy of the 2000, 2016, and 2020 presidential elections. Even before 2020, the losing candidate’s supporters are much less likely to view the outcome as legitimate. Losers are about 60 percentage points less likely to accept the election in 2000, about 40 points less likely in 2016, and about 70 points less likely in 2020. Perceptions of legitimacy are typically higher than confidence in election results, and many voters express doubts about the vote count while still accepting the legitimacy of the result.

Using Machine Learning Techniques to Predict United States House of Representatives Elections

We predict the results of the United States House of Representatives elections using machine learning techniques. We started by collecting and preprocessing data on the partisan lean of districts, the state of the economy, the national political environment, candidate political stances, news headlines about each candidate in each race, and the past election results. Then, we selected, designed, and trained the models we would use to predict those election results. We used single-tier models that took either only news headline text data or only numerical data as inputs and two-tier models that used both news headlines and numerical data. Our best-performing model was a two-tier model with a GRU as the first tier followed by a Ridge Regressor as the second tier, with a root mean squared error of under 2 percentage points. The vote share predicted by our best model was within 2 percentage points of the actual observed vote share.

THE ROLE OF AGENT-BASED MODELING AND COMPUTER SIMULATIONS IN POLITICAL SCIENCE

It considers opportunities for using computer agent-based modeling in studies related to political process analyses. Gives information about the historical context of computer simulation based on agent model implementation, and emphasizes the significance of T. Shelling and R. Axelrod models. It is noted usefulness of this method is applied to complex dynamic system analysis, wherein participants have complex interconnections, and their behavior depends on the situation. Gives information about an agent-based model's main elements, especially space and agents, and describes what they can represent. Draws attention to the importance of the researcher’s study goal understanding using this approach, which in turn affects the model parameters setting that determines model will be abstract, realistic, or mixed. Considered opportunities applying agent-based modeling for the course of social and political processes forecasting, and showed the opinion of other researchers on this issue. Provides examples of ten studies related to the analysis of various political processes, the authors of which applied this approach and their own agent models with different realism levels. Shows possibilities applied of computer simulations for forecasting the results of future and reproducing the results of past elections, evaluating election campaign strategies, the emergence of ideological polarization, modeling political discourse, evaluating the effectiveness of implemented policies, analyzing the risks of social instability in the state under the influence of external and internal factors. It is concluded that agent-based modeling can be a helpful tool in the hands of political scientists and noted that the use of this approach significantly expands the possibilities for analyzing complex political processes.

Analysis of the Closed Proportional Implementation Plan in the 2024 Election

General elections are very important to maintain people's sovereignty and Indonesian democracy. A good election must pay attention to the system and consider the advantages and disadvantages of the system used and find solutions to any deficiencies of the system used. This is because the system used by Indonesia is a country that uses a proportional election system. The proportional election system has been used in Indonesia since 1955. There are two forms of the proportional system that have been used in Indonesia, namely the closed proportional system and the open proportional system. The system currently used is an open proportional system. However, in 2019 the open proportional system caused many problems to occur. Therefore, in this study, researchers analyzed plans for closed proportional implementation in the 2024 election. This research uses a qualitative method, with a literature study approach. From this study, the researchers concluded that elections in Indonesia in 2024 must be based on the evaluation results of several past elections. Starting from constitutional orders, democracy, election budget, fraud, political costs, and human rights. There are fears that the current system will make people's political intelligence and democracy worse off. An open proportional system must be repaired internally in the recruitment of people's representatives. This can be the answer to the weaknesses of an open operational system.

SoK: Secure E-Voting with Everlasting Privacy

Vote privacy is a fundamental right, which needs to be protected not only during an election, or for a limited time afterwards, but for the foreseeable future. Numerous electronic voting (e-voting) protocols have been proposed to address this challenge, striving for everlasting privacy. This property guarantees that even computationally unbounded adversaries cannot break privacy of past elections. The broad interest in secure e-voting with everlasting privacy has spawned a large variety of protocols over the last three decades. These protocols differ in many aspects, in particular the precise security properties they aim for, the threat scenarios they consider, and the privacy-preserving techniques they employ. Unfortunately, these differences are often opaque, making analysis and comparison cumbersome. In order to overcome this non-transparent state of affairs, we systematically analyze all e-voting protocols designed to provide everlasting privacy. First, we illustrate the relations and dependencies between all these different protocols. Next, we analyze in depth which protocols do provide secure and efficient approaches to e-voting with everlasting privacy under realistic assumptions, and which ones do not. Eventually, based on our extensive and detailed treatment, we identify which research problems in this field have already been solved, and which ones are still open. Altogether, our work offers a well - founded reference point for conducting research on secure e - voting with everlasting privacy as well as for future - proofing privacy in real - world electronic elections.