The principal goal of this project was to theorize and explain electoral malpractice in comparative perspective. Electoral malpractice was defined in this research as the manipulation of electoral processes and outcomes so as to substitute personal or partisan benefit for the public interest. A theory of electoral malpractice was developed according to which elite decisions on whether to adopt a strategy of electoral malpractice involve a trade-off between power and legitimacy. On the one hand, incumbent leaders have an incentive to manipulate elections so as to reduce the inherent uncertainty in the electoral process and to ensure their continued hold on power. On the other hand, electoral manipulation is a strategy that entails risks to both domestic and international standing. Rigging elections lowers the legitimacy of leaders, which can affect their ability to rule without using coercive means, can cost them genuine electoral support, and can lead to international sanctions.

The research found evidence to support the theory that a variety of contextual factors related to costs, benefits and resources shape the decision calculus of elites. The strongest overall predictors of electoral malpractice were found to be per capita GPD and electoral system type. Elections are more likely to be manipulated in poorer countries, undoubtedly due to the greater incentives in such contexts for actors to exploit the electoral process for personal gain. Single-member electoral systems were found to be the strongest institutional determinant of electoral malpractice in parliamentary elections. This relationship can be explained with reference to the incentives faced by candidates to cultivate personal votes under such systems, as well as by the weaker control exercised by parties desiring to protect their reputations, as opposed to individual candidates. Further, the research found that the design of electoral management bodies has an impact on the quality of elections. Specifically, multi-party electoral management bodies tend to administer elections better than do electoral management bodies formed of notionally independent professionals. This suggests that the formal independence of electoral administrators is less important in determining the quality of elections than is political balance.

Analysis of the Index of Electoral Malpractice created as part of this project reveals a number of interesting patterns, including the prevalence of different types of electoral malpractice, the geographic distribution of this phenomenon, and its role in different types of election.

Electoral malpractice was understood as operating along three principal dimensions: the manipulation of rules governing elections, the manipulation of vote choice, and the manipulation of voting processes (electoral administration). It was hypothesized that the risk attaching to each form of abuse would dictate its relative attractiveness to elites and therefore its prevalence. Bearing in mind the relevance of contextual factors in shaping (perceptions of) risk, the manipulation of rules was expected to be most common, followed by manipulation of vote choice, and lastly by manipulation of voting (electoral administration). This hypothesis was supported by empirical analysis. The results also show that media manipulation and the misuse of state resources are the sub-categories in which there is the greatest amount of overall abuse. It is also noteworthy that efforts to manipulate vote choice through the media and the abuse of state resources are more common than attempts to intimidate voters or candidates; the carrot appears to be a more attractive strategy than the stick. Among the various aspects of electoral administration, voter registration and vote counting, tabulation and reporting are activities that are particularly susceptible to manipulation. It is noteworthy that the actual casting of ballots is less prone to abuse than the processing of ballots following the close of voting. This may well be due to the presence of observers at polling stations in the elections included in this dataset. By contrast, the obstruction of contestation and of election observation are aspects of the electoral process that are relatively immune from misconduct.

In geographic terms, the greatest amount of electoral malpractice was observed in Sub-Saharan Africa and the least in Latin America. These differences did not prove significant in multivariate analysis, however. In fact, once per capita GDP was controlled, levels of malpractice in Sub-Saharan Africa were actually lower than in the other two regions. Type of election (presidential, parliamentary or combined) did not exhibit statistically significant differences in levels of malpractice either.

As to the consequences of electoral malpractice, analysis of survey data from the Module Two of the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems project shows that higher quality elections lead to higher rates of electoral participation, whereas poor election quality lowers turnout.

For details of these results, see the Working Papers section of this website.