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Towards Detecting and Measuring Ballot Stuffing

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  • Dmitriy Vorobyev

Abstract

This paper proposes a method for detecting electoral fraud in the form of ballot stuffing. As ballot stuffing increases both turnout and the incumbent‘s vote share in precincts where it occurs, precincts with low reported turnout are more likely to be clean. Information on clean precincts is used to simulate counterfactual data for "infected" precincts, which are then compared to the observed data. The method is applied to the 2006 Finnish presidential elections. The test fails to reject the hypothesis of no ballot stuffing for the original data, but detects artificially imputed 1.6% fraud. The same test implies that in the 2004 presidential elections in Russia at least 4.7% of the votes were stuffed in favor of the incumbent.

Suggested Citation

  • Dmitriy Vorobyev, 2011. "Towards Detecting and Measuring Ballot Stuffing," CERGE-EI Working Papers wp447, The Center for Economic Research and Graduate Education - Economics Institute, Prague.
    • Handle: RePEc:cer:papers:wp447
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    File URL: http://www.cerge-ei.cz/pdf/wp/Wp447.pdf
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Brian A. Jacob & Steven D. Levitt, 2003. "Rotten Apples: An Investigation of the Prevalence and Predictors of Teacher Cheating," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 118(3), pages 843-877.
    2. Jing Li & Kuei-Ying Huang & Jionghua Jin & Jianjun Shi, 2008. "A survey on statistical methods for health care fraud detection," Health Care Management Science, Springer, vol. 11(3), pages 275-287, September.
    3. Justin Wolfers, 2006. "Point Shaving: Corruption in NCAA Basketball," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 96(2), pages 279-283, May.
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    Cited by:

    1. Ananyev, Maxim & Poyker, Michael, 2022. "Do dictators signal strength with electoral fraud?," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 71(C).

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    elections; fraud detection;

    JEL classification:

    • D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior

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