No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

This dissertation investigates changes in election results associated with adoption of different voting technologies. The empirical application uses election data for different offices from the period 1994-2002. We exploit a discontinuity associated with a change of the voting mechanism, from paper ballot to Direct Recording Electronic (DRE), conditioned on Brazilian election structure with overlap (local elections held two years out of phase with general elections) as a source of identification for election results determinants. We find robust evidence that the shift to an easier voting mechanism reflected on an enfranchising effect (increase in valid votes) which ultimately resulted in more political competitiveness. The impact on election outcome creates a source of identification for the determinants of mayors decision related to municipalities\' resource allocation. Specifically, we find evidence suggesting that facing an increase in political competition municipalities with a previous low level of competition reallocate public spending towards health care. / Essa dissertação consiste em uma análise das mudanças em resultados eleitorais associadas a adoção do voto eletrônico em 1998. Utiliza-se para essa investigação, a análise empírica de resultados das eleições para diferentes cargos entre 1994 e 2002. A partir da descontinuidade associada à adoção do voto eletrônico em 1998, em substituição à cédula de votação, e da estrutura sazonal das eleições brasileira (que, com um intervalo de dois anos, alterna as eleições municipais e as estaduais/federais) exploramos o impacto eleitoral da adoção da nova tecnologia e os desdobramentos em outras variáveis políticas. Encontramos forte evidência de que o voto eletrônico resultou em enfranchising (aumento dos votos válidos) e, em última instância, em maior nível de competição política. Usamos a mudança no grau de competição como fonte para identificação dos determinantes da alocação de gastos municipais. Especificamente, encontramos evidências que sugerem que aumentos no nível de competição política, para municípios com níveis menos acirrados de disputada eleitoral, tem impacto na realocação dos orçamento público municipal em direção aos gastos com saúde.

Typescript (photocopy). / Digitized by Kansas Correctional Industries

Thesis (MPA.) --University of Limpopo, 2018 / Despite the adoption of democratic electoral procedures and the establishment of the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) in post-apartheid South Africa, the strategies for providing voter education in rural areas of the country have not been adequate in terms of creating awareness about democracy and enabling rural citizens to mJlke rational choice during elections (Sadie, Patel, & Baldry 2016:6). It is for this reason that this study was conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of voter education strategies in one of the rural communities in Greater Giyani Municipality, in Limpopo province. This study adopted qualitative exploratory research design. The target groups were the local IEC voter educators and community members. Data was collected using one to one individual interviews, observation and literature review. The results of the study show that the IEC used various strategies to promote voter education. However, the dominant use of media was discredited by the community because of the language barrier, lack of ownership, one-way communication, unaffordability and low level of literacy. It was also found that voter education is not provided continuously as stated in IEC documents while shortage of IEC voter educators and limiting education periods pose other challenges. The study also revealed poor voter education coverage to special groups such as the disabled or the marginalised groups due to lack of capacity to teach them. These findings show that voter education is not as effective as it should be. The study therefore recommends that strategies for voter education be strengthened, especially in rural communities where people live in poverty and poor socio-economic conditions. It is further recommended that the IEC revises voter education strategies and uses those that will benefit more people, such as face to face and home visits, so that people feel free to ask questions. Furthermore, the community recommended that the IEC teaches community stakeholders, who will in turn cascade the information down to community members. The reason for this is that people are likely to feel free to communicate and to ask question because the educators will be known to them. The study further recommends that the IEC improves its staff complement to curb the existing shortage of human power. Further, research on evaluating the knowledge of voters on voting matters will be of outmost importance.

Voters are getting information from more and more sources. Along with this proliferation of sources has come an increasing distrust of traditional mass media. This has created a challenge for voters who seek reliable information when making decisions in the voting booth; including on ballot initiatives. Because voters tend to find ballot initiatives confusing and not easily informed by traditional party cues, the Citizen's Initiative Review (CIR) and the non-partisan, fact-based recommendations they produce have now spread into multiple states. This thesis seeks to gauge whether the CIR is effective at achieving the goals of increasing voter knowledge and encouraging thoughtful voting decisions; two challenges posed by ballot initiatives. I evaluate the available literature on how voters make decisions in general and about ballot initiatives specifically and then review data from five studies conducted in states with a CIR to determine whether the CIR has met these goals. Where other reports have evaluated findings from individual studies or states, my report takes a comprehensive view of the available data and compares it to what traditional political science literature has to say about voter behavior related to ballot initiatives. On balance, I find that voters see the CIR as providing useful and informative recommendations that have legitimate positive impacts on how they deliberate and vote on ballot initiatives.

<p>For at least two thousand years, voting has been used as one of the most effective ways to aggregate people's ordinal preferences. In the last 50 years, the rapid development of Computer Science has revolutionize every aspect of the world, including voting. This motivates us to study (1) <bold>conceptually, how computational thinking changes the traditional voting theory</bold>, and (2) <bold>methodologically, how to better use voting for preference/information aggregation with the help of Computer</p><p>Science</bold>.</p><p>My Ph.D. work seeks to investigate and foster the interplay between Computer Science and Voting Theory. In this thesis, I will discuss two specific research directions pursued in my Ph.D. work, one for each question asked above. The first focuses on investigating how computational thinking affects the game-theoretic aspects of voting. More precisely, I will discuss the rationale and possibility of using computational complexity to protect voting from a type of strategic behavior of the voters, called <italic>manipulation</italic>. The second studies a voting setting called <italic>Combinatorial Voting</italic>, where the set of alternative is exponentially large and has a combinatorial structure. I will focus on the design and analysis of novel voting rules for combinatorial voting that balance computational efficiency and the expressivity of the voting language, in light of some recent developments in Artificial Intelligence.</p> / Dissertation

We follow the approach of expressive voting and consider that voters with more extreme ideology can enjoy higher utility after voting. However, along with effect of ideology, voters also take the difference of his ideology and candidate¡¦s into account. Given the above assumptions, two candidates choose their ideology before voters decide whether and for whom to vote. Two candidates¡¦ ideology converges to the middle point if voters¡¦ utility generated by expressive voting approach is less important than by instrumental voting approach. In the opposite, two candidates¡¦ ideology diverge and the voters with mild ideology refuse to vote in point if voters¡¦ utility generated by expressive voting approach is more important. We examine the ANES data of ten U.S. presidential elections from 1972 to 2008. The nested logit model is used to estimate the corresponding coefficients of voters¡¦ utility generated by expressive voting approach and instrumental voting approach. The data supports our conjecture that voters with more extreme ideology are more likely to cast their votes.