What Causes Election Irregularities?

• In Event: How Ballot Structure Contributes to Voter Errors and Omissions

Abstract

Voters and politicians often blame election irregularities on fraud, undermining the perception of democratic and electoral credibility. We introduce several methods to assess the causes of tallying irregularities that leverage the quasi-random administration of polling stations and allocation of ballots paper. Using these methods, we revisit the case of the Malawian 2019 elections, which was famously cancelled by the High Court due to widespread irregularities and accusations of fraud. We show – contrary to the dominant consensus – that the majority of these irregularities were plausibly due to human error rather than fraud. We do not find evidence that the irregularities were motivated by fraud or that they benefited the incumbent. Instead, we show that irregularities increased in proportion to the complexity of filling in result-sheets, suggesting a dominant role for human error. In addition to re-interpreting a historically important election, we also make the case that policy efforts to improve electoral credibility could productively be reallocated towards electoral administration rather than anti-fraud measures.

Authors

• Johan Ahlback

• Ryan Steele Jablonski, London School of Economics and Political Science