Julia Pomares

The Impact of New Technologies on Voter Confidence in Latin America: Evidence from E-Voting Experiments in Argentina and Colombia

ABSTRACT We analyze trust in electronic voting in Latin America using data from two field experiments conducted in Argentina and Colombia. We find that voters generally exhibit high levels of confidence in e-voting, although this depends on individual characteristics such as age and education, as well as on the particular type of technology used. We contrast our findings with those from industrialized democracies and show that conclusions derived from American and European e-voting experiences cannot be directly extrapolated to the Latin American context. Overall, our results suggest that e-voting could provide an attractive alternative to traditional voting procedures in the region.

From piloting to roll-out: voting experience and trust in the first full e-election in Argentina

Despite the conventional wisdom that e-voting would take place first in established democracies and later in developing countries, the speed of implementation has been higher in the developing world, especially in Latin America, with several countries such as Brazil, Venezuela, Argentina and Ecuador implementing e-voting methods. This paper looks at the experience of Salta, the first Argentine district rolling out e-voting for the entire electorate in 2013. Based on a survey of 1,000 voters in the 2013 provincial elections, the voters experience and confidence in the election process is analyzed. Among the key findings, there is a strong effect of a voters ability to use the voting machine without assistance on the overall support for e-voting and positive perceptions of integrity in the election process. These results have both theoretical and policy implications.

Computational Social Science: Using Machine Learning Algorithms to Detect Election Fraud

For more than a decade, increased scrutiny has been placed on the administration and integrity of democratic elections throughout the world (Levin and Alvarez 2012). The surge of interest in electoral integrity seems to be fueled by a number of different factors: an increase in the number of nations conducting elections, more concerns about election administration and voting technology, the increased use of social media, and a growing number of scholars throughout the world who are interested in the study of integrity and the possible manipulation of elections (Alvarez, Hall, and Hyde 2008). Although there are many ways that the integrity of elections can be assessed – for example, by studying the opinions of voters about their confidence in the conduct of elections (Alvarez, Atkeson, and Hall 2012) or through election monitoring (Bjornlund 2004; Hyde 2007, 2011; Kelley 2013) – many methodologists, statisticians and computer scientists have contributed to the new and growing literature on “election forensics”. This body of research involves the development of a growing suite of tools – some as simple as looking at the distributions of variables, such as turnout in an election, and others that use more complex multivariate statistical models – to sift through observational data from elections to detect anomalies or outliers as potential indicators for election fraud and manipulation (Levin et al. 2009; Alvarez et al. 2014). The literature on election forensics now has advanced a somewhat dizzying array of methods for detecting election anomalies, without providing guidance