When do elections fail (and succeed)?

Pippa Norris, Richard W. Frank, and Ferran Martinez I Coma (Electoral Integrity Project)

In recent years, far too many elections have ended with the major protagonists at loggerheads, parties bitterly disputing the results, and conflict spilling over onto the streets. Cries of fraud are common, especially among losers in tight winner-take-all presidential races.

When questions about the legitimacy of the outcome arises, is there reliable evidence that contests fail to meet international standards? Or are these simply sour grape attempts to undermine the rightful winners?

To provide a more systematic, credible, reliable and legitimate source of independent evidence, in early-2013 the Electoral Integrity Project launched a new pilot study seeking to provide an authoritative assessment of the quality of national elections held around the world. The Electoral Integrity Project is developed by a team of scholars at the University of Sydney and Harvard University, led by Professor Pippa Norris, in conjunction with an international advisory board, the International Political Science Association, and many partner organizations in the international community.

For the pilot study on electoral integrity, conducted in April-May 2013, the project focused upon twenty independent nation-states around the world which had held national presidential or parliamentary elections during the prior six months, (i.e. the period from 1 July to 31 December 2012). 

All the data can be downloaded from www.electoralintegrityproject.com.

For each country, the project identified around forty election experts, defined as a political scientist (or other social scientist in a related discipline) who had demonstrated knowledge of the electoral process in a particular country. The selection sought a roughly 50:50 balance between international and domestic experts, the latter defined by location or citizenship. Experts were asked to complete an online survey. In total, 226 completed responses were received in the pilot study, representing just under one third of the experts that the project contacted (30%).

The idea of electoral integrity is defined by the project to refer to agreed international conventions and global norms, applying universally to all countries worldwide through the election cycle, including during the pre-election period, the campaign, on polling day, and its aftermath. The concept is seen as having eleven sub-dimensions in a sequential cycle.

The survey results are discussed in detail elsewhere but for a quick snapshot, here are the overall rankings in the countries under comparison.

Overall the Netherlands, the Czech Republic and South Korea came top of the rankings, all countries which have had a series of recent elections which are regarded as by observers and media commentators as without major flaws. By contrast, Belarus, the Republic of Congo, Angola, and Ukraine are all seen as performing poorly in elections, an assessment which is also consistent with observer reports.

Interestingly, the United States ranks 7^th in the countries under comparison, similar to Mexico and slightly below several newer democracies. Thus one finding emerging from the pilot study is that greater experience of democratic elections in any society was not necessarily an accurate predictor of the perceived quality of contemporary elections.

But what were seen as the key factors driving these results? Over-simple ‘pass-fail’ judgments are of little use to reformers seeking to strengthen the process.

Table 1 below presents the more fine-grained assessments concerning the performance of each of the eleven sub-dimensions in the electoral cycle. To summarize the comparisons across each of the 100-point standardized scales, using the familiar traffic light symbols, mean assessments below 49 were categorized as ‘low’ in integrity (colored red), and those from 50 to 74 were categorized as ‘moderate’ (colored orange), while scores over 75 were categorized as ‘high’ (colored green).

The analysis shows that issues of campaign finance were regarded as most problematic across many countries, with more than half the elections seen as performing poorly. Similarly campaign coverage by the news media was highlighted by experts as another area of concern.

The results also highlight specific problems occurring in particular countries, notably the partisan and decentralized nature of gerrymandering district boundaries in the United States (an area where the US achieved its lowest score), problems of the voting process in Venezuela, and challenges of fair and equitable media coverage and campaign finance in Romania. 

Thus overall the PEI index and dimensional scores help to highlight particular problems in each country which experts suggest deserve special attention by domestic stakeholders and the international community. Where flaws are identified, the next steps in the research are to establish their precise causes, their consequences, and what can be learnt from best practice to remedy the situation in the next contest.

Table 1:

Country	Electoral laws index (20-100)	Electoral procedures index (25-100)	Voting district boundaries index (20-100)	Voter registration index (20-100)	Party and candidate registration index (20-100)	Media coverage index (20-100)	Campaign finance index (20-100)	Voting process index (20-100)	Vote count index (20-100)	Results index (25-100)	Electoral authorities index (25-100)	PEI index of electoral integrity (standarized to 100-pts)
Netherlands	93	92	84	84	81	67	67	82	89	91	90	83
Czech Republic	83	96	77	92	83	68	80	71	95	90	90	82
South Korea	64	89	71	95	82	63	72	77	97	81	83	80
Slovenia	74	90	67	94	83	56	66	85	100	65	89	79
Lithuania	89	75	88	85	88	70	62	75	87	76	78	79
Japan	63	86	61	80	70	62	66	74	83	75	78	74
USA	51	76	33	52	81	72	55	73	86	87	80	70
Mexico	67	80	78	82	68	65	53	64	88	59	74	70
Ghana	84	73	67	58	80	62	41	53	84	56	70	66
Georgia	71	73	67	67	65	50	41	59	81	72	68	64
Montenegro	76	72	72	47	74	53	41	63	76	68	60	63
Venezuela	59	64	56	61	74	46	37	47	67	72	55	60
Kuwait	53	70	50	75	58	58	35	65	96	41	65	59
Romania	56	67	47	43	66	46	47	59	74	74	60	58
Ukraine	50	54	51	45	53	51	39	58	51	52	51	52
Angola	41	49	45	38	57	46	39	51	49	52	48	47
Congo, Rep of	42	50	53	33	47	41	27	56	41	60	38	45
Belarus	29	44	42	60	40	37	32	54	39	63	31	44
Burkina Faso	62	65	36	56	61	80	27		68	52	58
Sierra Leone	73	80			76	44	44	63	76	70	78
Total	67	76	60	70	73	58	53	69	78	69	70	68
Key	Score
Low	Low to 49
Moderate	50 to 74
High	75 to 100

Source: Pippa Norris, Ferran Martínez i Coma and Richard W. Frank. 2013. The Expert Survey of Perceptions of Electoral Integrity, Pilot Study April 2013:www.electoralintegrityproject.com