Diagnosing Electoral Integrity

Chapter 4 considers the sources of systematic evidence that are available to diagnose problems of American elections. Many claims and counterclaims about alleged malpractice are often heard in partisan debate and journalistic commentary—but during an era of low trust in the legacy news and isolating bubbles in social media, what could help to sort out fact from fiction? What are the pros and cons of alternative sources of evidence? This chapter compares electoral performance data on issues of voter registration permissiveness, ballot access, system security, and gerrymandering from several expert indices, institutional measures, and mass surveys.

Supporting of Nomination of Candidates: Historical Context, Problems and Seeking Their Solution

Three forms of supporting of nomination of candidates have developed in the process of establishment of the Russian electoral legislation (collection of electors’ signatures, results of previous elections, municipal filter) which in the author’s opinion do not always display such support and whose practical application gives rise to certain problems. In this regard, in the author’s opinion, such forms of support of nomination of candidates as results of previous elections and municipal filter should be eliminated from the Russian legislation. However, a threshold during registration of candidates is necessary, but only to prevent the candidates from abusing their ballot access and exclude those candidates who stand for the elections not to be elected, but for other personal purposes. Electoral pledge while preserving the signatures collection for those who can’t afford the electoral pledge might be an effective threshold for candidates who abuse their ballot access.