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What explains regional variation in election fraud? Evidence from Russia: a research note

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  • Max Bader
  • Carolien van Ham

Abstract

The December 2011 legislative election was among the most fraudulent national elections in Russia since the communist period. The fraud, however, was not evenly spread across the country. Precinct-level election returns from the 83 regions of the Russian Federation suggest that the level of fraud ranged from minimal or small in some regions to extreme in some others, with moderate to high fraud levels in many regions in between. We argue that in an electoral authoritarian context like Russia, regional variation in fraud can be explained by differences in (a) the perceived need by regional authorities to signal loyalty to the center by “delivering” desired election results; (b) the capacity of regional authorities to organize fraud; and (c) the vulnerability of citizens to political pressure and manipulation. We test the effect of signaling, capacity, and vulnerability on electoral fraud in the 2011 legislative elections with data on the 83 regions of the Russian Federation. We find evidence for all three mechanisms, finding that the tenure of governors in office, United Russia's dominance in regional legislatures, and the ethnic composition of regions are most important for explaining regional variation in electoral fraud.

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  • Max Bader & Carolien van Ham, 2015. "What explains regional variation in election fraud? Evidence from Russia: a research note," Post-Soviet Affairs, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 31(6), pages 514-528, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:rpsaxx:v:31:y:2015:i:6:p:514-528
    DOI: 10.1080/1060586X.2014.969023
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    Citations

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    Cited by:

    1. Koenig, Christoph, 2019. "Patronage and Election Fraud: Insights from Russia’s Governors 2000–2012," CAGE Online Working Paper Series 433, Competitive Advantage in the Global Economy (CAGE).
    2. Grigorii V Golosov, 2018. "Russia’s centralized authoritarianism in the disguise of democratic federalism: Evidence from the September 2017 sub-national elections," International Area Studies Review, Center for International Area Studies, Hankuk University of Foreign Studies, vol. 21(3), pages 231-248, September.
    3. Oleg Sidorkin & Dmitriy Vorobyev, 2020. "Extra votes to signal loyalty: regional political cycles and national elections in Russia," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 185(1), pages 183-213, October.
    4. Ananyev, Maxim & Poyker, Michael, 2022. "Do dictators signal strength with electoral fraud?," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 71(C).
    5. Dmitry I. Ivanov & Alexander S. Nesterov, 2019. "Stealed-bid Auctions: Detecting Bid Leakage via Semi-Supervised Learning," Papers 1903.00261, arXiv.org, revised Nov 2020.
    6. Kravtsova, Maria & Libman, Alexander, 2023. "Historical family structure as a predictor of liberal voting: Evidence from a century of Russian history," Economic Systems, Elsevier, vol. 47(2).
    7. Michael Rochlitz & Evgeniya Mitrokhina & Irina Nizovkina, 2020. "Bureaucratic Discrimination in Electoral Authoritarian Regimes: Experimental Evidence from Russia," Bremen Papers on Economics & Innovation 2010, University of Bremen, Faculty of Business Studies and Economics.

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