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The article focuses on the approaches towards understanding the concept of the electoral system, which may be the subject of research outside the field of law. The author distinguishes different opinions of foreign and Ukrainian scholars on the term “electoral system”, in particular, narrow and broad interpretation. The author analyzes the elements which inherently fill and reveal the concept of the electoral system. The article provides an overview of scientific research and concepts that study electoral systems, including the works of prominent Ukrainian and foreign scholars, as well as documents of international organizations and institutions. The author analyzes different approaches to the interpretation of the concept of “electoral system”, its legal nature and key elements that have a significant impact on the formation of elected bodies and the organization of electoral processes, and further establishment of democratic principles. The author presents various positions on the elements through which the concept of the electoral system is revealed, such as the electoral formula, electoral district, method of expressing the will of voters, structure of the ballot and the process of filling it out, method of voting, etc. The author shows the importance of these elements and how they are reflected in the definition and modification of different types of electoral systems. The author emphasizes the need for further study of the concept of an electoral system and its systemforming elements, which allow constructing an appropriate type of electoral system, in the context of Ukraine’s experience in organizing and conducting elections. This will have a positive impact on the process of improving the electoral systems used in the formation of elected bodies at the legislative level, which will consequently contribute to ensuring greater transparency of a number of electoral procedures, obtaining fair results and minimizing the risks of their distortion. The author outlines the problem of periodic unsystematic changes in electoral systems in the formation of elected bodies in Ukraine, which in turn generates negative trends in the decline of citizens’ electoral culture, trust in the results of voters’ expression of will and unpredictable consequences in the socio-political context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In many democracies, citizens complain that elections do not provide palatable options - none of the candidates are particularly appealing. More candidates imply more choice, and could potentially increase participation. However, too many candidates may overburden voters and thus discourage participation. In this paper, we use election results and experimental data to show that more candidates results in less participation. Effects are apparent even when comparing ballots with two or three candidates and are not assuaged by party labels. Our results suggest that too much choice on election day can be just as bad as too little. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Voters, like consumers, experience choice overload when presented with too many similar options. The literature on consumer behavior finds overwhelmed consumers often opt out of making a decision altogether. Yet, how large candidate fields affect American voter behavior remains unexplored. I use an aggregate-level analysis leveraging exogenous changes to Louisiana's electoral institutions and an individual-level analysis to investigate the effect of varying quantities of choice on ballot rolloff in U.S. House elections. Ballot rolloff is the phenomenon where voters turn out to vote, yet abstain in a given election. I find that an electoral institution that incentivizes candidate entry causes 5.7–7.1 percent more ballot rolloff, and also that individuals are more likely to rolloff when there are more candidates running in their House election. Louisiana is simply the best case to explore a phenomenon that is likely occurring in party primaries throughout the U.S.—choice overload at the ballot box. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We introduce a typology of election administration harms and apply it to empirically study the consequences of ballot design. Our typology distinguishes between individual, electoral, and systemic harms. Together, it clarifies why ballot design can be a particular vulnerability in election administration. Using both ballot‐level and precinct‐level data, we revisit Florida's 2018 United States Senate race, in which Broward County's ballot design flouted federal guidelines and, according to critics, was pivotal to the outcome. We estimate that Broward's ballot design induced roughly 25,000 voters to undervote in a race determined by about 10,000 votes and that these excess undervotes were concentrated among low‐information voters. Broward's ballot did not, however, affect the outcome of the election. Nonetheless, flawed ballot designs are still concerning in an age of voter distrust. Given the risk that flawed ballots can cause systemic harm, we offer a roadmap for procedural reforms to improve ballot design. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article by Shruta Swarup explores the concept of political obligation and the moral duty to obey the law. The author discusses different perspectives on this issue, including the role of respect and the relationship between democratic processes and laws. They argue that citizens of democratic states have a duty to obey the law, except for those laws that violate basic rights. The article also addresses objections to this view and discusses scenarios in which citizens may have a moral duty to obey or disobey the laws. Overall, this article provides a comprehensive analysis of the topic and is a valuable resource for those researching political obligation. [Extracted from the article]

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One of the fundamental rights in the modern democracy is voting. Much research has been done to strengthen the voting process and security. The new and safe Neural-Based Secured Decentralised E-Voting Framework employing Blur Image Broadcasting tackles the major issues with standard electronic voting techniques. Neural networks with blurred image broadcasting protected voter confidentiality, ballot integrity, & system security. Therefore, a novel Zebra-based GoogleNet Elliptic Curve (ZbGEC) is provided to upgrade the decentralized e-voting via blur image broadcasting in this study. It authenticates and broadcasts the voter's information safely to the blockchain technology. It additionally demonstrates time consumption, memory usage, and design cost. Only authorized users can view and alter encrypted and decrypted votes via neural networks. This encryption protects voter anonymity and ballot manipulation. Furthermore, blur image streaming obscures voter ballot selections, improving voter privacy. The decentralized design spreads voting over numerous nodes; removing the centralized Spread structure strengthens the system against manipulation and cyber-attacks. Notably, decentralized e-voting time consumption and response time were minimized to an efficient 2 seconds and 5 seconds. The proposed system's design cost was economical at $30, while memory usage was optimized to 300 MB, representing a significant improvement over traditional methods. Neural-based security, decentralized structures, and blurred image streaming produce a reliable e-voting system. This architecture improves security, privacy, openness, and scalability over electronic voting systems. The Neural-Based Secured Decentralised EVoting Framework utilizing Blur Image Broadcasting might make voting safer, more transparent, and inclusive. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we propose a smart contract-based multi-candidate self-tallying voting scheme in order to guarantee the privacy of ballots in the case of multiple candidates. This scheme uses the ElGamal cryptosystem to ensure the security of the ballots, and combines it with a Distributed Encryption algorithm to make the voting scheme have self-tallying features, and guarantees the correctness of the intermediate data through zero-knowledge proofs. The experimental results show that the scheme improves the voting efficiency without compromising the security. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Heuristics are used to compensate for the limitations of human cognitive capacities. However, little is known about how voters decide what cue to use when multiple cues are available. Exploiting the institutional features of elections for the nonpartisan position of superintendent of education in South Korea, we demonstrate that voters may choose an "ecologically rational" heuristic in a given context, taking into account the trade-off between the cognitive costs and the accuracy of inference associated with different cues. Our analysis shows that the three cues—ballot order, partisan color, and ideology —are commonly used in the absence of party labels, and their relative importance varies with the electoral context. In areas with large school-age populations and in races without an incumbent, contexts where the demand for information is conceivably high, the importance of the partisan color cue increases. We further present individual-level evidence suggesting that voters with higher levels of political sophistication and interest rely more on the ideology cue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Europe, the multiplication of elections makes the election calendar a decisive issue given the decreasing participatory trend. Turnout is expected to be higher in simultaneous elections, while it lessens if several elections are held over a short period. The saliency of the preceding ballot may also affect participation in the next one. In this article, we argue that these temporal effects are crucial for European Parliament elections due to their second-order nature. We analyse how the position, frequency and nature of domestic ballots affect European Parliament elections turnout since 1979. Our results indicate that the participation level is less affected by the timing of elections than by their overall frequency. The type of preceding election also matters, although not the second-order nature per se. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What drives partisan competition over the pursuit of legislative majorities in contemporary congressional elections? While conventional wisdom suggests that the chances of a legislative majority is largely predicated on the public's ideological policy preferences or national standing of the president, there is little work assessing the dynamics of partisan competition over the course of the electoral cycle. Leveraging over 60 years of new generic congressional ballot data measuring the monthly preference of the mass public's partisan presence for the congressional majority, this paper finds that partisan competition for the majority largely centers on the national policy mood and the public perception of presidential performance rather than partisan conflict. This paper validates the importance of these findings relating to partisan competition for the legislative majority by showing that this electoral competition plays a significant role in predicting the national normal popular vote and partisan seat turnover from 1960 to 2020. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many U.S. states require election workers to check signatures on ballots returned by mail, causing tens of thousands of ballots to be rejected at each general election. This paper applies Bayes' theorem, along with findings from prior research, to show how rejection rates are likely to vary under plausible assumptions about signature checker accuracy and the prevalence of invalid signatures. This approach yields a pair of predictions. On the one hand, given findings from research on handwriting forensics, the Bayesian analysis implies election workers are more likely to wrongly reject valid ballots for purported signature mismatch than to correctly reject invalidly signed returns. On the other hand, research on election workers as problem-solvers suggests they may try to minimize the wrongful rejection of ballots. I find empirical support for each prediction, including signs that election workers learn from past errors to calibrate signature rejection rates downwards. This suggests election worker discretion may be an unexpected source of resilience against laws otherwise liable to disenfranchise eligible voters, although I also discuss conditions under which such discretion may conflict with democratic norms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A permutation is called Grassmannian if it has at most one descent. The study of pattern avoidance in such permutations was initiated by Gil and Tomasko in 2021. We continue this work by studying Grassmannian permutations that avoid an increasing pattern. In particular, we count the Grassmannian permutations of size m avoiding the identity permutation of size k, thus solving a conjecture made by Weiner. We also refine our counts to special classes such as odd Grassmannian permutations and Grassmannian involutions. We prove most of our results by relating Grassmannian permutations to Dyck paths and binary words. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the paper "The best Condorcet‑compatible election method: Ranked Pairs" (Munger in Const Polit Econ 2023. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10602-022-09382-w), the author identifies Tideman's ranked pairs method as the best single-winner voting method, while the Schulze method (Schulze in Soc Choice Welf 36(2):267–303, 2011; The Schulze method of voting, 2018. https://arxiv.org/pdf/1804.02973v12.pdf) comes in a close second. Munger (Munger in Const Polit Econ 2023. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10602-022-09382-w) writes: "Beatpath (Schulze) emerges as Ranked Pair's chief competitor". In this comment, I will show that the scenario that Munger uses to argue against the Schulze method is not possible. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

From five parameters at the state level: percentage of Catholic adherents (CATH-ADH), average number of adherents per congregation (ADH/CON), number of congregations per capita (CON/POP) and voting percentages from the 2020 election for Trump (TRUMP) and Biden (BIDEN), we obtain six Pearson correlation coefficients at the national and regional levels. These yield a significant positive correlation between CATH-ADH and BIDEN, as well as for ADH/CON and BIDEN, while the opposite is true for TRUMP. Conversely, there is a negative correlation between CON/POP and BIDEN and a positive one for TRUMP. The interplay between these, as well as important geographical and confessional spatial autocorrelations measured using Moran’s index, show the influence of religion on the 2020 election among two main lines: Catholic support for Biden and Trump support from atomized yet smaller congregations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 1950, exiles from all across Latin America met in Havana for a congress. The event's purpose was to unite those striving for a democratic Latin America, free from US imperialism and Soviet totalitarianism. This current of opinion was not marginal: it was enthusiastically backed by millions of voters in largely free elections across the continent. However, very little has been written on democracy in Latin America, particularly during the period explored in this paper, 1940–1960. Recent scholarship on the period has instead focused on the ideological struggle between capitalism and socialism. In this paper, I highlight two democratic congresses held in Latin America in 1950 and 1960, under the title Conferencia Interamericana Pro Democracia y Libertad. The conferences served as a forum to delineate a common definition of democracy for the continent, and to explore how it could take hold in Latin America. This paper thus reveals an ideological current independent from the superpowers, which tried to democratise the region against what participants identified as the twin evils of imperialism and totalitarianism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The document provides an overview of the results of a preliminary guiding vote on proposals to amend the International Code of Nomenclature for algae, fungi, and plants. A total of 433 proposals were submitted to the XX International Botanical Congress in Madrid, Spain. The vote was conducted via email, and 201 completed ballots were received. The results of the vote for each proposal are presented in a table, indicating the number of "yes," "no," "edc" (refer to the Editorial Committee), and "spc" (refer to a Special-purpose Committee) votes. [Extracted from the article]

This article examines the use of land ballots by the Queensland Government in the mid-20th century as a policy tool to promote agriculture and address population growth. The study focuses on central Queensland and includes personal accounts from individuals who won land through ballots. While the article highlights the success stories of these new farmers, it also acknowledges the challenges they faced, such as limited infrastructure and low commodity prices. Despite these difficulties, many balloters were able to establish thriving agricultural enterprises, leading to increased local population, regional development, and improved infrastructure. The article provides a balanced perspective on the benefits and costs associated with land ballots and offers historical references for further research. [Extracted from the article]

On January 6th, 2021, a mob of more than 2,000 Trump supporters stormed the Capital—at his urging—in an effort to halt counting of electoral college votes from the 2020 Presidential Election. Vandalism, injury, and loss of life ensued. Although the actions of Trump and the insurrectionists were alarming, the structural factors that gave rise to this offense are arguably even more troubling. In this paper, we outline three "criminogenic antecedents" that provided individual actors an opportunity to incite insurrection: (1) a lack of clarity and consensus in conceptualizations of crime, which has resulted in an ambiguous, contentious, and limited foundation from which to respond to crimes of the powerful; (2) a resultant pattern of symbolic punishments that fails to control these offenses; and (3) Congressional deviance, which virtually ensures that this environment of nonfeasance will continue. We conclude the analysis by proposing policy ideas that will hopefully strengthen our democracy and reduce the risk of something similar happening in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Studies focusing on Belize reveal that clientelism is the glue that makes the party system stick. We explore whether ideology and ethnicity account for partisanship within that deeply clientelist setting. We use four AmericasBarometer survey waves by the Latin American Public Opinion Project (LAPOP) to study the individual-level correlates of partisan attachments with the People’s United Party (PUP) and United Democratic Party (UDP). Using binary and multinomial probit maximum likelihood estimators, we find that ethnicity correlates to partisanship with the PUP, and ideology correlates to partisanship with the UDP. The robustness checks, which focus on declared vote choices in previous national elections, corroborate our findings. The Belizean case shows how clientelist parties can develop alternative support sources and that these can vary substantially. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Democratic self-rule is an unending argument about what democracy is. In normal times, democracy reproduces its legitimacy by its routine operation. In times of political crisis, however, the defining issue of an election can become the commitment of adversaries to the rules of the democratic game. At such times, polarization can become lethal to the very system that both sides say they are committed to maintaining. All democracies could use serious institutional reform, but we will not begin unless we abandon the illusion that democracy's problems would be solved if we could just defeat authoritarian populists at the ballot box. It is our institutions, not just the players, that need changing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives: Election observers have expressed concerns about voter "confusion" under ranked choice voting (RCV) since the 1890s. What is the meaning of "confusing," and how does it affect behavior? We argue (with much of the literature) that ranking candidates for public office is a cognitively complex task because of a lack of information. Methods: We explore some observable implications of this perspective using exit poll data from the first RCV election in Santa Fe, New Mexico, in 2018. Results: Sixteen percent of voters reported having felt very (6 percent) or somewhat (10 percent) confused, and Hispanic voters were more likely to be confused than white voters. Confused voters report ranking fewer candidates, have lower confidence in ballot‐counting accuracy, and are less supportive of RCV than nonconfused voters. Conclusions: These results raise questions about RCV's equity, participation costs for voters, ease of use, and longevity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Courts prosecuting corruption serve a critical horizontal accountability function, but they can also play a role in moments of vertical accountability when voters can sanction corrupt candidates. This article documents the strategic use of corruption lawsuits, demonstrating the presence of an electoral cycle in filing new corruption accusations against politicians. Using an original dataset of daily corruption complaints filed in federal courts against members of Argentina's main political coalitions between 2013 and 2021, we document increased corruption accusations against and by politicians in the periods immediately preceding an election. A second dataset of daily media coverage of corruption accusations in two leading newspapers suggests that corruption is more salient before elections, offering politicians a temporal focal point to prepare and launch especially impactful lawsuits. Our findings shed new light on using courts for accountability and debates about the so-called 'lawfare' in Latin America. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Does party system polarization mobilize voters? Polarization is increasingly shaping democratic competition across Europe. While often perceived to be negative, polarization can be an effective remedy against voter disengagement. This paper investigates two distinct, but often conflated mechanisms, which could explain why polarization leads to mobilization. Spatial polarization of parties diversifies electoral options at the ballot, while affective polarization mobilizes based on emotional considerations. This article then shows the link between polarization and turnout across 22 European countries. The results are complemented by a difference-in-differences analysis of German local elections. However, voting results alone do not inform about the mechanism at play. Survey data is used to show that negative affect appears to be the main driver of voter participation. Party polarization thus has ambivalent consequences for democracies: It mobilizes the electorate, but its effect is driven by negative emotions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Consumer sentiment is considered an important indicator of changes in household spending. However, the evidence of the causal relationship between sentiment and consumption is mixed and scarce. We address this gap using data from the monthly Florida Consumer Attitude Survey, which captures party affiliation, consumer sentiment, and spending intentions since 1991. We employ political partisanship as an instrument for sentiment and find a significant effect of sentiment on spending intentions. Finally, we provide evidence that spending intentions relate to actual spending and show that spending increased among counties with a larger share of Republican voters following the 2016 presidential election. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article offers an overview of the debate and passage of the Opportunity Scholarships Act in the Nebraska Legislature and the subsequent fight to put the issue on the ballot in 2024. Cited are the language of article VII, section 11 of the Nebraska Constitution which prohibits appropriations to nonpublic schools, the inapplicability of the state action doctrine to private schools receiving public funds, and the state's three tax credit programs that share some similarities with the Act.