Election Spending Research Articles

Big Money Unleashed: The Campaign to Deregulate Election Spending. By Ann Southworth. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2023. 336p. $99.00 cloth, $32.50 paper

Big Money Unleashed: The Campaign to Deregulate Election Spending. By Ann Southworth. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2023. 336p. $99.00 cloth, $32.50 paper

Voter support for bond referenda: Does it matter if costs are presented as aggregate vs. personal costs?

AbstractWe explore whether voters' willingness to approve government spending in bond elections is affected by how costs are presented. Using an original survey experiment, we examine willingness to approve bonds, randomizing both the total cost of the bond and the framing of the cost as either a personal cost or an aggregate amount. We find that respondents are less supportive of bonds when the bond is framed as a personal expense and that respondents are more cost‐responsive when they see personal costs. There is also substantial heterogeneity based on the respondent's partisanship and the policy domain of the bond.

Campaign Spending and Its Effect during the 2013 and 2016 Elections in the Province of Cebu

Elections play a crucial role in legitimizing authority in democratic societies, yet the impact of campaign spending necessitates further investigation. This research delves into the influence of campaign expenditures on election outcomes in Cebu province between 2013 and 2016. Analysis of the Statement of Contributions and Expenditures (SOCE), this study explores how candidates make decisions regarding the allocation of campaign funds. Employing a mixed-method research approach, quantitative techniques like regression analysis are utilized to examine the relationship between spending and election results, while qualitative methods including scrutinizing SOCE documents and conducting interviews with candidates and COMELEC officials shed light on spending patterns and offer recommendations for policy enhancements. Cebu Provincial data elections spanning 2013 and 2016 reveal a strong positive correlation between election spending and votes. Travel expenses, compensating campaigners, and communication demonstrate statistically insignificant correlations with voting outcomes (p-values of 0.842, 0.771, and 0.811, respectively). Similarly, printed materials and the employment of watchers’ expenditures display slightly positive correlations but lack statistical significance (p-values of 0.239 and 0.984). Moreover, campaign headquarters, meetings, and rallies show no significant correlations (p-values of 0.841 and 0.458). Advertising expenses emerged as the sole statistically significant factor in 2013 (p = 0.000), indicating a substantial 22.6 increase in votes for every 55,895 pesos spent. In the 2013 elections, only campaign paraphernalia and media spending correlated with votes; conversely, media spending was the sole positive correlation in 2016. Findings suggest that wealth played a significant role in the 2013 election, undermining the democratic principle of meritocracy where the most deserving candidate should prevail. Proposed policy changes include criminalizing campaign malpractices, ensuring candidate qualifications are rigorously vetted, and enhancing voter education programs spearheaded by academia. These measures are essential to mitigate the undue influence of money in politics and uphold the integrity of our electoral system.

Winner-takes-all Majoritarian System and Irregularities in Six Election Cycles in Nigeria, 1999 – 2019

The argument that Nigerian elections are characterized by electoral irregularities since the commencement of present democratic engagement in 1999 has not been sufficiently subjected to an analytical procedure to embrace the six Nigerian election cycles. The unsettled question of irregularities that have consistently dominated elections in Nigeria is interrogated in this study. The study situates the problem within the context of winner-takes-all majoritarian electoral system (MES) and queries the implementation of the MES-driven model in an environment of do-or-die politics, weak electoral institution, and 'glorification' of clandestine electoral strategies. It further argues that the model reinforces politicians’ use of subtle strategies to increase their odds of victory and pay less or not attention to their detrimental consequences on democratic development. The study is underpinned on personal experience as active participants in Nigerian elections and available textual documents. The analysis of data supports the argument that MES-model is poorly implemented in Nigeria and promotes the crude perception of politics as a zero-sum do-or-die contest. The present deplorable state of democracy in Nigeria is a function of irregularities and their consequential composites: life-taking elections, election disputes, and voter apathy, which has been in a downward fall since 2003. These findings suggest the need for voter-driven electoral reform that will reduce tension during elections and encourage inclusivity in Nigeria. The reform should be able to institutionalize Nigeria’s electoral body and check government interference in its activities, reduce the present huge election spending, ensure proportionate distribution of votes/positions, and make public offices less financially attractive.

Polarization and Campaign Spending in Elections

I develop a Downsian model of electoral competition in which candidates with policy and office motivations use platforms and campaign spending to gain the median voter’s support. The unique equilibrium involves randomizing over platforms and spending and exhibits the following properties: (i) ex ante uncertainty about the winner, (ii) platform divergence, (iii) inefficiency in spending and outcomes, (iv) polarization, and (v) voter extremism. I show that platform polarization and spending move in tandem, since spending is used by candidates to gain support for extreme platforms. Factors that contribute to both include the candidates’ desire for extreme policies and their capability at translating spending into support for them. I also show that strong incumbents parlay an advantage into more extreme platforms, consistent with the classic marginality hypothesis but contrasting with a large theoretical literature in which candidates with an (exogenous or endogenous) valence advantage tend to moderate their platforms.

Impact of Election Expenditure on Agricultural Service Delivery Expenditure in Zambia, 2000-2021

Purpose: This paper examined the public expenditure changes between elections and agriculture service delivery. The aim was to determine how the relationship trend related to agriculture growth. Early analyses assumed that elections act as a signal for preferential public expenditure. Thus, in Zambia, agriculture would be a priority as the government claims over 70% of citizens, directly or indirectly earn from the sector.
 Methodology: Times series secondary data was analyzed for descriptive statistics from 2000 to 2021.
 Findings: The evidence is that agriculture public expenditure was lower than CAADP targets in this period. Agriculture research as a service received the lowest funding. The trend also revealed that there were very sharp increases in election expenditure in both the preceding year and in the year of elections. In most election years this was close to 2% of total national public spending over the study period. These election spending spikes may have induced cyclical fiscal shocks, difficult to recover from, resulting in limited fiscal space and a reduction in agriculture spending. The electoral cycle induced fiscal shocks, over time, may have also led to a downward trend in agriculture growth. The authors identify this phenomenon as the ‘functionality burden of democracy’.
 Recommendation: Based on the findings the study recommends that agreed policy objectives in agriculture and CAADP commitments must become a national mission. This would mean that the agriculture goals are shared at all levels including family, schools, private sector, civil society and the media.

The Business of Elections: Transparency and UK Election Spending

The Business of Elections: Transparency and UK Election Spending

Allocating Unlimited Money: What Explains Super PAC Spending in Congressional Elections?

Abstract How do Super PACs allocate their resources? The question is both timely and relevant, particularly as we reflect on the ten-year anniversary of the Citizens United ruling. Super PACs now outspend – sometimes by huge margins, as in the 2016 presidential election – all other groups’ independent expenditures including those of parties, unions, and 501(c) organizations. The issue is especially important in congressional politics, where Super PACs have an opportunity to shape the institution every two years through congressional elections. Utilizing outside spending data from the Center for Responsive Politics, we analyze four U.S. House election cycles since the Supreme Court’s landmark 2010 Citizens United ruling (2012–2018). The likelihood that Super PACs invest in a race is strongly determined by the electoral context, even after controlling for the legislative influence of the incumbent member of Congress.

Spending Fast and Furious: Political Advertising in 2020

Abstract This article is a “first look” at political advertising in 2020. Spending on political advertising in the United States in 2020 obliterated records, and Democrats held huge advantages in the presidential race and in most congressional and senatorial races. In addition, all indicators suggest that spending on digital advertising continued to rise. Political advertising was largely similar in tone to past years and, in the presidential race, was substantially more positive than 2016. In addition, interest groups remained heavily involved in federal races in 2020, airing more ads than ever before, though their spending as a percentage of total ad spending was slightly less than in 2016. Political ad spending in 2020 may have been historically high because of the impact of COVID-19 on how campaigns could reach voters, suggesting that paid advertising may decline in 2022 and 2024, at least as a percentage of total election spending.

Citizens United and Independent Expenditures in State Supreme Court Elections

Following the decision by the US Supreme Court in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission in 2010, questions about the impact of unlimited independent expenditures on state supreme court elections emerged. For those critical of the decision, an area of concern was how elected state courts could be adversely affected by outside group spending. Utilizing data from thirteen states that required disclosure of money spent by outside groups between 2006 and 2016, this research explores patterns of independent expenditures to determine if fears about spending in judicial elections were justified. Using both descriptive and regression analyses, the results indicate that independent expenditures have been on the rise, though important differences exist across the states and by sector. Where states once limited outside groups, their spending activity increased in the post-Citizens United era. Where state laws were not affected, outside group spending declined. The impact of the Supreme Court’s decision therefore is most clearly observed in states that once sought to limit the influence of outside groups.

Democracy on a Shoestring

Democracy requires money. Voters must be registered, voting rolls updated, election dates advertised, voting technology purchased and tested, poll workers trained, ballots designed, votes counted and verified, and on and on. Despite the importance of election expenditures, we have a shamefully inadequate amount of information about how much our elections cost. This Article, based on a novel and painstakingly hand-coded dataset, provides much needed information on election expenditures across multiple years from four states: California, Arizona, Texas, and Florida. These states, given their unique characteristics, provide a compelling sample set. In what we believe to be a completely novel approach to the collection of election expenditure data, we supplement our hand-coded data with predictive machine learning. This allows us to estimate average annual election spending across multiple government units. Our findings, unsurprisingly, reveal great variation both across and within states. But our findings also reveal that much of the variation is seemingly unconnected to poverty, race, and other traditional explanations of electoral disadvantage. This brings into question many basic assumptions legislators, courts, and scholars harbor about election expenditures. Our findings implicate not only policy discussions about election funding but also the limitations of doctrinal interventions and judicial remedies that are divorced from issues of resource allocation. The Article proceeds in five parts: Part I provides background on election funding, including a discussion of election costs and what the most common funding sources are. This Part also discusses election law doctrines and how they do not directly consider election expenditures. Part II outlines our data and methods. Part III presents our main findings. Part IV responds to the findings and explores potential doctrines under which election expenditures might be considered. Part V weighs the pros and cons of several non-doctrinal proposals for election administration reform.

After Citizens United: How outside spending shapes American democracy

We study the political consequences of lifting restrictions on the funding of groups engaging in outside spending (e.g., independent political advertising) in elections. Theoretically, we assume that outside spending changes the salience of candidate-specific attributes relative to their party labels. Empirically, we employ a difference-in-differences design that exploits the removal of state-level restrictions on the funding of outside spending mandated by the federal-level rulings in both Citizens United and SpeechNow.org v. FEC. We find strong evidence that these regulatory changes increase the electoral success of Republican candidates, thereby leading to more ideologically conservative legislatures. We find no effect on polarization. Consistent with our theory, the size of our estimated effects depends on the power of labor unions and the alignment of business interests with the Republican party.

Extremism Grows in the Dark: Political Non-Profits, Disclosure and Ideological Interest Group Spending

Following the Supreme Court’s 2010 decision in Citizens United v. FEC, independent expenditures have grown dramatically both in terms of raw dollars and as a percentage of spending in elections. A large and growing portion comes from political nonprofits—so called “dark money” groups—named because the terms of their incorporation allow them to partially obscure the sources of their income. I posit that the pathways for anonymous giving that emerged from the Citizens United decision allowed ideologically motivated interest groups to aggressively challenge more established factions of political parties in way previously unfeasible. Testing this theory, I find strong support that dark money groups back more extremist candidates—especially during primary elections—than either formal party organizations or access-oriented interest groups. These results indicate that the anonymous pathway to giving offered by dark money has created a new font for ideologically motivated interest groups to spend in American elections.

The Political Economy of Facebook Advertising: Election Spending, Regulation and Targeting Online

AbstractPolitical advertising on Facebook is the latest in a long line of developments in campaign practice, and is a tool that has been mobilised extensively in elections around the world. In this article, we explore what we know about Facebook advertising at elections and ask what existing data from the UK Electoral Commission can reveal about current usage. Highlighting the principles behind Facebook advertising, we argue that existing metrics offer little insight into current campaign trends—posing analytical, methodological and normative challenges for academics and electoral regulators alike. Moreover, we argue that these challenges strike at the heart of debates about democratic responsibility and the degree to which governments should cede responsibility to commercial actors who may have differing understandings of fundamental democratic norms.

The cost of democracy: The determinants of spending on the public administration of elections

Managing the electoral process requires considerable administrative and organizational capacity. Poor performance can lead to voters being disenfranchised and the integrity and legitimacy of elections undermined. Providing sufficient capacity to manage a national electoral process is expensive. Little research assesses how much electoral democracy costs, and what drives those costs. These are crucial questions for democracies, political science and public administration. Using rare comprehensive data from Britain, this article’s major contribution is to begin identifying some of the drivers impacting on the cost of electoral administration in advanced democracies. It presents an overview of influences on spending on electoral administration, before developing a multivariate model utilizing socio-economic, organizational and administrative data on election spending. It finds that costs in an important advanced democracy have been driven in a major national election by the need to provide capacity, notably on the ground close to electors.

Dark Parties: Citizens United, Independent-Expenditure Networks and the Evolution of Political Parties

Following the Supreme Court’s 2010 decision in Citizens United v. FEC, independent expenditures have grown dramatically both in terms of raw dollars and as a percentage of spending in elections. A large and growing portion comes from political nonprofits—so called “dark money” groups—named because the terms of their incorporation allow them to partially obscure the sources of their income. I develop a new data set of about 2,350,000 tax documents released by the IRS and use it to test a new theory of spending in Congressional elections. I posit that the pathways for anonymous giving that emerged from the Citizens United decision allowed ideologically motivated interest groups to form new networks and create new pathways for money into candidate races apart from established factions of political parties. Akin to networked party organizations discovered by other scholars, these networked dark money groups channel money from central hubs to peripheral electioneering groups. Viewed holistically, including dark money groups into the party network frame reshapes the network as a whole–making previously peripheral nodes more important to the larger network and redefining the role that party organizations and interest groups fulfill in party networks.

Less Money, Fewer Donations: The Impact of New South Wales Political Finance Laws on Private Funding of Political Parties

AbstractThe role of money in politics has been a concern internationally with strong calls for stricter regulation of such funds. In Australia, this has resulted in a shift from laissez‐faire to increased regulation. Yet, there has been little research into the impact of this shift. To address this gap, this article examines the impact of four New South Wales political finance laws enacted from 2008 to 2012, which reflect the emergent regulatory approach. Focusing on the total number and value of political donations made to New South Wales political parties, it assesses the effects of the four Acts individually, as well as their overall impact, to test the assumption of legal effectiveness. It finds strong support for two key expectations resulting from the assumption: first, the raft of legislation will reduce the total number and value of political donations to the parties and second, that the 2010 legislation, which imposed caps on political donations and election spending, and substantially increased public funding, would be the most significant of the four Acts in terms of impact due to its scope and depth.

The Demand for Healthcare Regulation: The Effect of Political Spending on Occupational Licensing Laws

Using data on political spending in state elections, this study considers the role of political contributions by healthcare professional interest groups in states' decisions to enact occupational licensing laws. These laws govern how different professions may operate in healthcare markets, and while they ostensibly exist to protect consumers, licensing laws can also insulate professionals from competition in healthcare markets. Higher political spending by physician interest groups increases the probability that a state maintains licensing laws restricting the practices of nurse practitioners (NPs) and physician assistants (PAs). Conversely, increased spending by hospital interest groups increases the probability that a state allows NPs and PAs to practice with more autonomy. Nurse groups, which include groups affiliated with NPs, have a smaller effect on licensing laws. And nonphysician groups, which include groups affiliated with PAs, have almost no effect on licensing laws. These results are consistent with the investment theory of political spending.

Differential Disclosure Requirements as a Response to Increasing Out-Of-State Spending in State and Local Elections

Differential Disclosure Requirements as a Response to Increasing Out-Of-State Spending in State and Local Elections

Local Economic Gains from Primary Election Spending

This paper asks how government and private consumption spending affect earnings in service sectors. To do this, we exploit the variation across states and time in the money spent while campaigning for a party’s Presidential primary nomination. We create a novel dataset combining the date each state held its primary from 1976-2008, the date in each election cycle in which only one candidate remained, and quarterly state earnings by sector. Using an instrumental variable strategy, we find that hosting a primary election increases earnings, particularly in the retail and accommodations sectors. These results remain consistent when using data on primary campaign expenditures across states in the 2004 and 2008 elections. JEL codes: D7, P0, H0 ∗The authors acknowledge helpful comments from Amit Gandhi, Ken Goldstein, Andrew Reschovsky, John Karl Scholz, Alan Sorenson, and Chris Taber. All remaining errors are our own. †rlessem@andrew.cmu.edu, Tepper School of Business, Carnegie Mellon University, 5000 Forbes Ave, Pittsburgh PA 15213 ‡carly.urban@montana.edu, Department of Agricultural Economics & Economics, Montana State University, P.O. Box 172920 Bozeman, MT 59717