The winner-loser satisfaction gap in the absence of a clear outcome

In this manuscript, we examine the impact of voting for the winning candidate on satisfaction with democracy. While extensive evidence exists documenting this relationship, it is almost entirely correlational in nature. We take advantage of survey timing during the 2000 post-election period in the U.S. when the vast majority of respondents were uncertain about who would win the presidency. Employing 2000–2002 panel data and using a difference-in-differences model, we are able to establish a relationship between electoral outcome and satisfaction with democracy that appears only for respondents interviewed once the outcome became official. We find an increase in satisfaction among winners and a parallel decrease among losers from 2000 to 2002. Importantly, our design allows us to go further than most studies to make causal claims.

The Role of Payoff Valence on Voting: Egalitarian for Gains and Selfish for Losses

We study how payoff valence affects voting behavior on the distribution of monetary outcomes framed as gains or losses in a group when using standard plurality voting (PV) procedures and when using approval voting (AV). The latter method allows the subjects to approve of as many alternatives as they wish and has been shown to eliminate the incentives to vote strategically. For both methods, we observe that voters express higher support for egalitarian allocations (and lower support for selfish options) when sharing gains than when sharing losses. Moreover, the average number of approved alternatives per ballot is higher when distributions are framed in terms of gains than when they are framed in terms of losses. We also discuss under which circumstances the shift in voting behavior is more likely to produce changes in the electoral outcome. The results suggest that framing manipulations (payoff valence) can significantly impact voting behavior.

What Kind of Electoral Outcome do People Think is Good for Democracy?

There is perennial debate in comparative politics about electoral institutions, but what characterizes this debate is the lack of consideration for citizens’ perspective. In this paper, we report the results of an original survey conducted on representative samples in 15 West European countries ( N = 15,414). We implemented an original instrument to elicit respondents’ views by asking them to rate “real but blind” electoral outcomes. With this survey instrument, we aimed to elicit principled rather than partisan preferences regarding the kind of electoral outcomes that citizens think is good for democracy. We find that West Europeans do not clearly endorse a majoritarian or proportional vision of democracy. They tend to focus on aspects of the government rather than parliament when they pass a judgment. They want a majority government that has few parties and enjoys wide popular support. Finally, we find only small differences between citizens of different countries.

Public Distrust in Disputed Elections: Evidence from Latin America

The comparative literature on democratization has shown that election trust depends as much on subjective factors as on the objective conditions of the process. This literature, however, has thus far overlooked the consequences of candidates refusing to concede an electoral defeat. This letter argues that a disputed electoral outcome further inflames negative perceptions of electoral integrity among voters who supported a losing candidate. We bring support for this claim from a multilevel regression that includes data from the AmericasBarometer surveys on almost 100,000 respondents across 49 elections in 18 Latin American countries. We combine these responses with an original database of disputed elections in the region. The empirical findings demonstrate the eroding effect of challenged election outcomes on voters' election trust, particularly among those who voted for a losing candidate. The findings underscore an intuitive yet untested pattern: candidates' refusal to accept the electoral outcome is a strong signal among their supporters, increasing their distrust on the integrity of the process.

A New Dataset on the Demographics of Canadian Federal Election Candidates

This research note reports on a new effort to track candidate diversity in Canadian elections. The dataset covers 4,516 candidates who ran in the 2008, 2011, 2015 and 2019 federal elections and includes novel data on their race, Indigenous background and age, alongside information on gender, occupation, prior electoral experience and electoral outcome. We outline the process for collecting and systematizing these data, which relied on genealogical methods and the principle of triangulation. The data can be used to track diversity among electoral candidates over time or merged with other sources to answer district-level questions about representational diversity, electoral dynamics, vote choice and political communications. The method could also be replicated and applied to other levels of government.

Does Voluntary Voting Enhance Partisan Bias? Evidence from Chile

Although partisan bias – when an authority transfers discretionary public resources to a politically aligned receiver − has been extensively studied, less is known about how this practice is affected by the voting regime − compulsory or voluntary voting. In this article, I study partisan bias in Chile, using administrative data of transfers from the central authority to local governments, highlighting two relevant scope conditions: the electoral cycle, and electoral uncertainty caused by the adoption of voluntary voting. I found strong evidence of partisan bias, especially in election years and in electorally riskier municipalities. This suggests that the uncertainty introduced by this electoral reform induced politicians to allocate a large share of resources to risky municipalities, because such resources would play a more significant role in the electoral outcome. Overall, these results imply that voluntary voting has a large impact on the way that resources are allocated across subnational units.

Are voters' views about proportional outcomes shaped by partisan preferences? A survey experiment in the context of a real election

We examine citizens' evaluations of majoritarian and proportional electoral outcomes through an innovative experimental design. We ask respondents to react to six possible electoral outcomes during the 2019 Canadian federal election campaign. There are two treatments: the performance of the party and the proportionality of electoral outcomes. There are three performance conditions: the preferred party's vote share corresponds to vote intentions as reported in the polls at the time of the survey (the reference), or it gets 6 percentage points more (fewer) votes. There are two electoral outcome conditions: disproportional and proportional. We find that proportional outcomes are slightly preferred and that these preferences are partly conditional on partisan considerations. In the end, however, people focus on the ultimate outcome, that is, who is likely to form the government. People are happy when their party has a plurality of seats and is therefore likely to form the government, and relatively unhappy otherwise. We end with a discussion of the merits and limits of our research design.

The Role of Media in Presidential Electoral Outcome in Nigeria between 2009 to 2019

This paper examines the role of the media in electoral outcomes in Nigeria. The methodology used was the examination of secondary data. The paper established that the Nigerian media had come a long way from its colonial past the media was also buffeted by other negative factors that affected its professionalism like the military dictatorships which tried but were unsuccessful in muzzling the media. The media in Nigeria though vibrant is limited in its professional and ethical reportage and broadcast due to issues considered primordial like ethnicity, religion, ownership among others. While it can be said that the media does indeed affect the electoral outcomes because of political advertisement, coverage etc they are not the sole determinants of electoral outcomes in Nigeria.