Tag: voting
Fierce but short-lived: How does economic crisis affect political participation?
The Great Recession that hit Europe in 2008 led to the loss of millions of jobs and soaring levels of unemployment. In a recent study, Anna Kern, Sofie Marien and Marc Hooghe investigate whether the recent crisis depresses or boosts levels of political participation in Europe. They find that economic growth is positively associated with elite […]
Asking specific targeted questions can overcome misreporting and bring about greater accuracy in post-election surveys
Researchers are dependent on high quality information arising from post-election survey data in order to best understand the attitudes and the social trends that shape election outcomes. But often, because of the stigma attached to not voting, some respondents misreport their behaviour, claiming erroneously to have voted. Here, Eva Zeglovitz and Sylvia Kritzinger show that by […]
There are costs and benefits to rotating the names of candidates on ballot papers
There is a small but comprehensive literature on the impact of candidate and party position of election outcomes, with a consensus that appearing in particular positions a ballot paper can influence voter choice. Here, Kamil Marcinkiewicz adds to this literature, arguing that while name position does have an impact, it is not a uniform phenomenon, […]
Five mistakes we all make when talking about voters
In the past week the media has been full of commentators explaining why voters have made certain choices, confident they can understand their motivations. But how accurate can these insights possibly be? In this post, the Labour Party’s former research director Steven Van Riel considers the psychological phenomenon of ‘asymmetric insight’, and explains how all we reach judgements about other voters […]
The Indian General Election is the world’s largest, and the country’s most significant in years
India, the largest democracy in the world with 814 million eligible voters, is in the midst of an election to choose its next Government. The contest covers 28 states and 9 Union territories, and takes place in nine phases. Rekha Diwakar argues that these elections mark a cross-roads for India’s governance, with a clear and decisive result creating […]
The Electoral Commission’s Jenny Watson on internet voting, electoral fraud, and Individual Voter Registration
The Electoral Commission is the public body responsible for regulating party and election finance and setting standards for UK elections. The organisation’s Chair, Jenny Watson, agreed to answer questions from Democratic Audit’s Sean Kippin on the prospects for moving voting online, recent allegations about the integrity of postal voting, and the concerns around the implementation of Individual Voter Registration […]
A vicious cycle of apathy and neglect: young citizens and the power gap
It is well known that the number of people neglecting to turn out at elections is on the increase. It is also firmly established that non-voters tend, on the whole, to be younger than the population at large. This non-participation in electoral life increasingly problematic for representative democracy as a whole. In an extract from […]
Age significantly impacts on the choices that voters make at elections
The current Coalition Government has notably protected the benefits and pensions enjoyed by older people, with political considerations likely key in its thinking. James Tilley argues that ageing as a psychological process entails a gradual gravitation towards parties that defend the status quo, which suggests that it is the Conservatives who are likely to benefit politically from Britain’s ‘ageing society’. […]
What is the extent of electoral fraud at English elections?
The Attorney General Dominic Grieve MP has apologised for controversial remarks about corruption among ethnic minority groups in the UK. In the 2012 audit of UK democracy, Stuart Wilks-Heeg, Andrew Blick and Stephen Crone examined the extent of electoral fraud in English elections, finding that instances had fallen in recent years after a sharp increase […]
Denying prisoners the vote creates a barrier to their reintegration into society
Parliament is currently considering how to relax the UK’s restrictions on prisoner voting, which have been deemed in breach of the European Convention on Human Rights. In this post Nicola Lacey argues that our ongoing failure to extend voting rights to prisoners creates a powerful symbol of their exclusion from full membership of society. Similar […]
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