Electoral Litigation in Political Campaigns

Abstract

What role do lawsuits play in elections? We assemble a new dataset covering over 27,000 electoral lawsuits matched to detailed information on more than 19,000 mayoral candidates in Brazil. 30 percent of mayoral candidates are involved in election-related lawsuits, and they spend 11 percent of their campaign funds on lawyers. Candidates filing lawsuits rarely succeed in disqualifying opponents or annulling elections. Instead, the true motivation might be to influence voters: Most lawsuits target runner-ups, are filed right before the election, are judicially weak, and are featured in media campaigns. Using polling data and exact filing dates, we find minimal average effects of lawsuits on vote intentions and can rule out large adverse effects on defendants. The results suggest that electoral litigation is often used strategically in campaigns even when its average electoral effects are limited.

Keywords: electoral courts, negative campaigning

JEL Classification: K16, K41, D72