Many authoritarian political regimes hold multiparty elections in which the opposition often stands a chance to defeat the incumbent. How do ordinary citizens perceive the integrity of elections in such systems? We argue that government supporters follow the incumbent's narrative in considering elections fair and legitimate. In contrast, opposition supporters regard elections in such systems as biased and not meaningful. We provide evidence from cross-country public opinion data and the unexpected 2018 Turkish snap election announcement to examine long- and short-term patterns of perceived electoral integrity. We find that the partisan gap in perceived electoral integrity is more substantial under electoral authoritarianism than under democratic rule. In the short term, electoral events can boost incumbent supporters' confidence in the quality of elections. Our study yields implications for the dynamics between elites and citizens in authoritarian regimes in which elections remain the primary source of legitimacy.
Zusammenfassung Die Parteien begegnen dem digitalen Wahlkampf unterschiedlich: so gut wie alle setzen innerparteiliche demokratische Verfahren webbasiert um. Die Bereitstellung von Materialen für Unterstützer*innen reicht von Logos und Vorlagen zum Download für alle oder nur für Parteimitglieder bis hin zu Offlineformaten. Manche Parteien unterhalten eigene Kampagnenseiten, andere bauen die etablierten Parteiseiten aus. Die Einbindung von Bürger*innen in den Programmentstehungsprozess reicht von digitalisierten Beteiligungsformaten bis zur bloßen Präsentation des Programms. Mit Blick auf den verbleibenden Wahlkampf sollte das Augenmerk auf die digitale Einbindung von Unterstützer*innen gerichtet werden, aber auch die Personalisierung der Wahlkämpfe der Parteien ist interessant: Gelingt es die Spitzen- bzw. Kanzlerkandidat*innen auch im digitalisierten Distanzwahlkampf als eigene Marke zu etablieren?
Despite the increase in citizens' use of absentee voting and examples from other countries, so far Germany remains aloof to the idea of introducing electronic voting as another form of convenience voting to its political elections. Apart from intra-party elections, no changes in the direction of electronic voting are considered in the current debate about an electoral reform. What are the reasons for the German aloofness toward electronic voting? In this article, we focus on party positions and institutional, as well as legal considerations, to provide a comprehensive answer to this question. From a normative point of view, the question of electronic voting is inextricably linked to the concept of electoral integrity, as the latter is pivotal to determine a democratic mode to select trusted representatives. Therefore, this paper first discusses the opportunities and risks for electoral integrity associated with electronic voting. Based on these considerations, we then explore reasons for the hesitancy of German legislators. To this end, we conducted expert interviews with German MPs and considered open-source documents related to the German debate about electronic voting. Our paper contributes to research on party positions on electronic voting, by relating the topic to questions about electoral integrity and considering political parties' reasoning, as well as legal and institutional constraints in the German context. We find that the main reasons provided by party representatives circle around concerns about transparency, security, accuracy, and the value of the voting act itself.
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