RAPID: Election Monitoring in Africa

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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.