Unifying the Concepts of Electoral Fraud and Preference Falsification: Case of Russia
32 Pages Posted: 27 Aug 2013
Date Written: August 27, 2013
Abstract
This study throws new light on whether public opinion polls, namely, preference falsification, can affect the level of election fraud by employing Kuran's model of preference falsification, which is empirically tested using the data collected from the most recent presidential campaign in Russia (2012). My research findings reveal the presence of statistically significant effects of preference falsification on election fraud, thus enabling me to conclude that preference falsification is, indeed, conducive to election fraud. My findings are generalizable to a broad set of authoritarian regimes, enabling scholars to get a better understanding of the mechanism by which survey polls can incentivize officials to commit election fraud. Hopefully, these findings will also invite more interdisciplinary research within thefields of election forensics and survey methodology.
Keywords: election fraud, preference falsification, social desirability bias, public opinion, polls, Russia
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