RAPID: Election Monitoring in Africa

RAPID：非洲的选举监测

• 批准号: 1118589
• 负责人: Clark Gibson
• 金额: $ 8.8万
• 依托单位: University of California-San Diego
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2011
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2011-03-01 至 2013-02-28
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1118589&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: RAPID; Election; Monitoring; Africa

Does election monitoring reduce fraud? International observers use monitoring as a core component of the effort to ensure fair elections in transitioning democracies and post-conflict countries. Yet scholars and policymakers know little about the actual impact and scale of monitoring given weak tests and flawed research designs. In an effort to overcome these challenges, this project employs more robust methodologies and tests new hypotheses to evaluate the effect of monitoring during the February 18, 2011, Presidential and Parliamentary elections in Uganda. The project advances knowledge and understanding of election monitoring in several ways. By taking advantage of cellular phone technology and an application designed specifically for this project to facilitate the recording and transmission of vote tally results, the principal investigator and collaborators will randomize the presence or absence of monitoring across polling stations and district counting centers throughout Uganda. By creating a random sample of 800 locations, this study is the first to evaluate the impact of election monitoring at such a scientifically rigorous level. The PI will test whether or not this intervention reduces fraud in polling stations and district centers, whether incumbents have greater control over fraud than do challengers, and whether there are differences in fraud levels between polling stations and district centers. An important benefit to the scientific community is the provision of an experimental estimate of the causal effect of monitoring on election fraud. This project makes several broader contributions. The study provides evidence to academics, policymakers, and citizens about the promotion of free and fair elections. The project should also make an important contribution to citizen welfare, in that robust evidence now indicates that enfranchising disadvantaged groups raises political responsiveness, whereas manipulating elections leads to popular resentment and often election-related violence. Moreover, because Uganda resembles many developing democracies along such key dimensions as institutional weakness, social diversity, and poverty, the results of this project will suggest how well its fraud monitoring technology is likely to work in other settings. If effective, the cellular technology used in the project would furnish a cost-effective alternative to conventional election monitoring. It could provide much greater coverage at multiple levels, and could also be easily adapted to other service delivery and corruption monitoring uses.

选举监察能减少舞弊吗？国际观察员将监督作为确保过渡民主国家和冲突后国家公平选举的核心组成部分。然而，鉴于薄弱的测试和有缺陷的研究设计，学者和政策制定者对监测的实际影响和规模知之甚少。为了克服这些挑战，本项目采用了更可靠的方法，并检验了新的假设，以评估2011年2月18日乌干达总统和议会选举期间的监测效果。该项目从几个方面提高了对选举监督的认识和理解。通过利用移动电话技术和专门为该项目设计的应用程序，以方便记录和传输点票结果，主要调查员和合作者将在乌干达各地的投票站和地区点票中心随机安排是否有监控。通过创建800个地点的随机样本，这项研究首次在如此严格的科学水平上评估选举监督的影响。民意调查将测试这种干预是否能减少投票站和地区中心的舞弊行为，现任总统是否比挑战者对舞弊行为有更大的控制权，以及投票站和地区中心之间的舞弊程度是否存在差异。对科学界来说，一个重要的好处是提供了对监督对选举舞弊的因果关系的实验估计。这个项目做出了几个更广泛的贡献。这项研究为学者、政策制定者和公民提供了促进自由公正选举的证据。该项目还应对公民福利作出重要贡献，因为目前有确凿的证据表明，使弱势群体获得选举权会提高政治反应能力，而操纵选举则会引起民众的不满，并往往导致与选举有关的暴力。此外，由于乌干达在制度薄弱、社会多样性和贫困等关键方面与许多发展中民主国家相似，本项目的结果将表明其欺诈监测技术在其他环境中的工作效果。如果有效，该项目中使用的蜂窝技术将提供一种具有成本效益的替代传统选举监测的方法。它可以在多个层面提供更大的覆盖范围，也可以很容易地适应其他服务提供和腐败监测用途。