Constraints on Nonpartisan Election Observation

• In Event: Election Observation and Public Confidence in Elections

Abstract

Nonpartisan citizen election observers are often presented as the future of election observation, thought to be one key to improved citizen confidence in elections and to provide more sustainable support for election integrity than international observers. In this paper we use data gathered by the Varieties of Democracy Project (V-Dem) alongside an original dataset on nonpartisan citizen election observation in twenty-three Latin American and Caribbean countries to test hypotheses about conditions that facilitate or impede domestic nonpartisan election observation. In particular, we are interested in the relationship between election management and domestic election observation. We find that nonpartisan election observation is meaningfully affected by matters of context. This includes the quality of election management, i.e. whether election authorities are partisan, well-resourced and autonomous.

Authors

• Sharon F. Lean, Wayne State University

• Matthew Thomas Lacouture, Wayne State University