Election-Day Experiences and Evaluations of Electoral Integrity in Unconsolidated Democracies: Evidence from Nigeria
| Date | 01 August 2018 |
| DOI | 10.1177/0032321717724932 |
| Author | Nicholas Nathan Kerr |
| Published date | 01 August 2018 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
https://doi.org/10.1177/0032321717724932
Political Studies
2018, Vol. 66(3) 667 –686
© The Author(s) 2017
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DOI: 10.1177/0032321717724932
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Election-Day Experiences
and Evaluations of Electoral
Integrity in Unconsolidated
Democracies: Evidence from
Nigeria
Nicholas Nathan Kerr
Abstract
Why do voters’ evaluations of elections in unconsolidated democracies appear to be unaffected
by election-day events? Among the handful of studies that examine the consequences of election
experiences in countries with less experience with multiparty elections, a majority finds that
what happens on election day does not matter. I seek to reexamine this puzzle using original
post-election survey data on the 2015 Nigerian presidential elections. First, I distinguish between
voters’ evaluations of the process (1) at their own polling stations (local) and (2) across the entire
country (national). Second, I highlight three types of election-day experiences that are relevant
for unconsolidated democracies: experience with manipulation, administrative irregularities,
and election observers. Multivariate regression results indicate that all three experiences are
associated with local and national perceptions of electoral integrity. However, the salience of some
experiences, such as interactions with election observers, depends on whether voters make local
or national election integrity evaluations.
Keywords
electoral integrity, electoral fraud, election observation, election management, Nigeria
Accepted: 2 June 2017
Introduction
As multiparty elections have become a nearly universal phenomenon, scholarship on
democratization has found that citizens’ evaluations of the quality of elections directly
influence their confidence in elected officials (Moehler, 2009), satisfaction with democratic
outputs of the regime (McAllister and White, 2015; Norris, 2014), as well as the nature and
scope of their political behavior beyond elections (Bratton, 2013). Notwithstanding the
Department of Political Science, The University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, AL, USA
Corresponding author:
Nicholas Nathan Kerr, Department of Political Science, The University of Alabama, 345 ten Hoor, Box
870213, Tuscaloosa, AL 35487-0166, USA.
Email: nkerr@ua.edu
724932PSX0010.1177/0032321717724932Political StudiesKerr
research-article2017
Article
668 Political Studies 66(3)
important consequences of citizens’ election integrity judgments for the legitimation of
regimes that hold multiparty elections, scholars know relatively less about the process
through which citizens formulate these attitudes toward electoral integrity.
Admittedly, the burgeoning literature on the correlates of citizens’ evaluations of elec-
tion integrity has made some key advances, especially with regard to the role of citizens’
winner–loser status (Alvarez et al., 2008; Sances and Stewart, 2015) as well as the impact
of electoral institutions and electoral management bodies (Birch, 2008; Bowler et al.,
2015). However, one area that has received less theoretical and empirical attention is how
voters’ actual experiences on election day—the focal point of the electoral process—may
influence electoral integrity attitudes. This gap in the literature is even more pronounced
in research conducted in regimes with less experience with multipartyism, where
occurrences on election day could have deleterious consequences on voters’ democratic
attitudes and subsequent political behavior.
From a theoretical perspective, there are several reasons to expect voters’ opinions of
election integrity to be associated with events on election day. First, citizens’ direct
involvement with the electoral process constitutes a source of information on the quality
of elections. When citizens register to vote, attend campaigns, queue in long lines at the
polling booth, and ultimately cast their ballot, they gain intimate knowledge of the quality
of the electoral process (Birch, 2011; Elklit and Reynolds, 2002). While all stages of the
electoral cycle are important, from the vantage point of voters, however, activities on
election day figure very prominently. Election day represents the focal point of the elec-
toral process. It is the one aspect of the electoral cycle, and perhaps the democratic pro-
cess, when the largest proportion of a country’s citizens is directly involved either by
casting ballots or assisting in election administration (Mozaffar and Schedler, 2002). It is
also the one day that voters, through their collective will, have the greatest potential to
influence governance and policymaking (Powell, 2000).
Moreover, research conducted in consolidated democracies, and particularly the
United States, has revealed that “objective” experiences with the voting process are
important predictors of voter confidence (Atkeson and Saunders, 2007). Specifically,
scholars have documented how voter experiences on election day such as interactions
with polling officials (Claassen et al., 2008), proper functioning of voting/ballot technol-
ogy (Beaulieu, 2015), secrecy of the voting process (Karpowitz et al., 2011), and logisti-
cal issues, including the time it takes to vote (Alvarez et al., 2008), are associated with
voters’ trust in the integrity of the process.
So far, a handful of studies have attempted to examine the relationship between what
happens on election day and voters’ election integrity attitudes using country cases out-
side of consolidated democracies.1 A majority of these studies conclude that occurrences
on election day either do not matter for citizens’ electoral integrity opinions or they matter
considerably less than otherwise expected. For example, Seema Shah (2015) finds that
Kenyan voters’ judgments about electoral credibility were not influenced by their per-
sonal experiences with irregularities at the polling station during the 2013 presidential
elections. Meanwhile, Cantú and García-Ponce (2015) conclude that the presence of
observers at polling stations did not affect Mexicans’ confidence in the quality of the 2012
presidential elections. Moreover, McAllister and White (2011: 675) conclude that because
only a small proportion of Russians have had an experience with electoral irregularities,
“it follows that this widely sense of unfairness does not have its origin in that personal
experience, but must derive from other aspects of the political system.” In sum, many of
these studies contend that citizens are less self-centered when forming attitudes toward
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