RAPID: Election Monitoring in Africa

选举监督能减少舞弊吗？国际观察员将监测作为努力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，该项目采用了更有力的方法，并测试了新的假设，以评估在2011年2月18日乌干达总统和议会选举期间监测的效果。该项目从几个方面增进了对选举监测的认识和理解。通过利用移动电话技术和专门为该项目设计的应用程序促进计票结果的记录和传输，主要调查员和合作者将在乌干达各地的投票站和地区计票中心随机化有无监测。通过创建800个地点的随机样本，这项研究是第一次在如此严格的科学水平上评估选举监测的影响。PI将测试这种干预是否减少了投票站和选区中心的舞弊，现任官员是否比挑战者对舞弊有更大的控制，以及投票站和选区中心之间的舞弊水平是否存在差异。科学界的一个重要好处是，对监测选举舞弊的因果关系提供了一个实验性的估计。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关于促进自由和公平选举的证据。该项目还应对公民福利作出重要贡献，因为现在有强有力的证据表明，赋予弱势群体选举权会提高政治响应性，而操纵选举则会导致民众不满，并往往与选举有关的暴力事件。此外，由于乌干达在体制薄弱、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，该项目的结果将表明其欺诈监测技术在其他环境中可能发挥多大作用。如果有效，该项目中使用的蜂窝技术将为传统的选举监测提供一个具有成本效益的替代方案。它可以在多个层面上提供更大的覆盖面，也可以很容易地适应其他服务提供和腐败监测用途。

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.