<p>This research sought to understand the nature of election-related conflict and what needs to be done to arrest the eruption of such conflict in Lesotho. It sought the opinions of selectively respondents who have been involved in the conflicts in different ways. The interviews and documented literature revealed that what constitutes a background to election-related conflict involves issues that are many and varied. Among others such issues include the following: weak political institutions, use of vulgar language by political leadership, and the weak economy that intensifies neo-patrimonial tendencies. The research concluded that all the factors associated with the eruption of illegitimate conflicts during and after general elections in Lesotho are a result of the politicians&rsquo / desire to retain or capture national resources to satisfy their selfish interests and those of their cronies. The conflicts could be minimised if the country&rsquo / s economy could be transformed to provide the politicians with alternatives of economic survival outside the structures of government. Furthermore, to minimise the conflict, the country should consider establishing electoral courts. These have the potential of speeding up the resolution of electoral grievances, in the process preventing them from graduating into serious conflicts.</p>

Politikai įvairiai deklaruoja savo elgesį, todėl vienintelis būdas juos kontroliuoti – stebėjimas. Šiame darbe yra analizuojamas LRS darbas, susijęs su balsavimais. Stengiamasi atsakyti į klausimą: ar informacinių technologijų įrankiai gali leisti nustatyti ar Seimo narių priklausomybė partijai (frakcijai) ar pozicijai (opozicijai) lemia jų balsavimą? Pagrindiniai darbo tikslai – Seimo narių grupavimas ir balsavimo kitimo aptikimas. Apžvelgiama 2008-2012 metų Seimo kadencijos veikla, atlikta balsavimų statistinė analizė, taip pat apžvelgti kiti tyrimai, susiję su parlamentinėmis veiklomis. Seimo narių grupavimui taikome klasterizavimo metodus. Klasterizavimas gali būti apibrėžiamas kaip objektų suskirstymas į grupes (klasterius), kuriose objektų skirtumai yra kuo mažesni, o tarp grupių skirtumai - kuo didesni. Darbe apžvelgiami įvairūs klasterizavimo metodai, jų veikimo principai, aprašomi atstumų tarp objektų skaičiavimo metodai, kokybės įvertinimo kriterijai. Balsavimų duomenys saugomi MySQL duomenų bazėje, todėl sukurtas įrankis duomenų apdorojimui. Aprašomi visi darbo etapai: naudoti įrankiai, balsavimo kodavimas, balsavimų skaidymas į periodus. Tyrimams atlikti pasirinkti k-Means, hierarchiniai tolimiausio kaimyno, vidutinių atstumų, artimiausio kaimyno klasterizavimo metodai. Objektų panašumams įvertinti naudojami Euklido (ang. Euclidean) ir Manheteno (angl. Manhattan) atstumų skaičiavimo metodai. Klasterizavimo kokybės įvertinimui naudojame PURITY, RAND, NMI metodus... [toliau žr. visą tekstą] / Politicians declare their behavior in different ways, so the only way to control it - monitoring. In this thesis tools for Lithuanian Parliament Members voting behavior are analyzed. The question is following: can Information technologies tool help to determine how membership in a faction or the position (opposition) is related with voting behavior? The main objectives of this work are Lithuanian Parliament members grouping by their voting behavior and its' change detection. In the thesis the 2008-2012 of the Parliament activities are analysed using statistical voting analysis. We use clustering for grouping members of the Parliament. A loose definition of clustering could be the process of organizing objects into groups whose members are similar in some way. A cluster (group) is a collection of objects which are similar between them and are dissimilar to the objects belonging to other clusters. We overviewed different clustering methods and their principles of operation, described the distance between the objects of calculation methods, quality evaluation criteria in this work. Voting data is stored in MySQL database, hence a tool was created for data processing. We describe all the stages of the work: the use of tools, coding of the votes, division of the votes into the periods. The following techniques were chosen: K-Means, Hierarchical Clustering with Complete (furthest neighbor), Average, Single (nearest neighbor) linkage. We use Euclidean and Manhattan methods for... [to full text]

This thesis examines the political attitudes and behaviour of young principled non-voters in New Zealand and explores the potential influence of postmaterialist theory on their decision not to vote in general elections. This research is primarily conducted through in-depth interviews with young principled non-voters with the goal of understanding their political motivations through their own words. Democratic theory, postmaterialist theory, leading voting theories and research relating to young people and New Zealand are all focused on to place the findings from the in-depth interviews in the context of wider literature and research. The findings of this research suggest that, while postmaterialist theory is a potential influence on some of the young principled non-voters interviewed, the relationship between principled non-voters and postmaterialism is not as strong as expected. However, the findings did show consistently low levels support for the current systems of political representation and participation in New Zealand amongst those interviewed. This, as well as their support for alternative methods of participation, places the participants in line many of the current concerns for the health of representative democracies and traditional political practices. These principled non-voters also highlight the need for greater research into young non-voters in New Zealand, as they do not fit within traditional expectations of young apathetic non-voters.

No description available.

Elections are critical to the functioning of democracy, and many states have enacted various reforms designed to increase voter turnout. The reforms are referred to as ‘convenience voting’ methods and are designed to lower the perceived costs of voting. In 2006, Ohio adopted reforms that allowed no-excuse absentee voting and a period where voters could register and vote the same day. However, research still is unclear if these reforms have any effect on turnout. By comparing turnout in Ohio in presidential elections both before and after the reform to the same elections in Pennsylvania, a state that has not enacted similar reform, the effect of convenience voting can be seen. Looking at turnout in each county within the states reveals that the reform enacted in Ohio has had no positive impact on turnout. / Department of Political Science

The purpose of this study was to investigate if there were predictors for student participation in university governance; voting rates in particular. The variables examined were citizenship status, gender, age, basis of admission, program level, and program delivery model. The location of the study, Royal Roads University, offers the majority of its programs through a blended delivery model: an online format combined with short residencies. A regression analysis was performed on voter participation rates in elections for student representatives on the Royal Roads University Student Association, Academic Council, and the Board of Governors. Results indicate low voting rates overall with the highest frequency of voting amongst those in blended delivery programs; correlations exist between age and citizenship status, and between program delivery model and program level, but statistically significant predictors of voting behaviour were peculiar to each election dataset. / Graduate

End-to-end verifiable election systems (E2E systems) provide a provably correct tally while maintaining the secrecy of each voter's ballot, even if the voter is complicit in demonstrating how they voted. Providing voter incoercibility is one of the main challenges of designing E2E systems, particularly in the case of internet voting. A second challenge is building deployable, human-voteable E2E systems that conform to election laws and conventions. This dissertation examines deployability, coercion-resistance, and their intersection in election systems. In the course of this study, we introduce three new election systems, (Scantegrity, Eperio, and Selections), report on two real-world elections using E2E systems (Punchscan and Scantegrity), and study incoercibility issues in one deployed system (Punchscan). In addition, we propose and study new practical primitives for random beacons, secret printing, and panic passwords. These are tools that can be used in an election to, respectively, generate publicly verifiable random numbers, distribute the printing of secrets between non-colluding printers, and to covertly signal duress during authentication. While developed to solve specific problems in deployable and incoercible E2E systems, these techniques may be of independent interest.

Univ., Diss.--Frankfurt (Main), 2005. / Literaturverz. S. [309] - 341.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of California, San Diego, 2008. / Title from first page of PDF file (viewed Aug. 1, 2008). Available via ProQuest Digital Dissertations. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (p. 130-137).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 2008. / Title from title screen (site viewed Dec. 15, 2008). PDF text: xviii, 376 p. : maps (some col.) ; 6.92 Mb. UMI publication number: AAT 3315158. Includes bibliographical references. Also available in microfilm and microfiche formats.