Abstract:
"Are contingent electoral strategies, like vote buying and intimidation, effective in Africa? No, according to recent scholarship: unlike parties in other developing regions like Latin America, African parties lack the capacity to violate ballot secrecy and force voters to stick to their end of the bargain. Voters can therefore “defect” and vote their conscience. We challenge this perspective. Recent Afrobarometer data show that nearly one in four Africans doubt ballot secrecy. We argue that the perception of ballot secrecy violation is sufficient for enabling contingent strategies. Drawing upon Afrobarometer data and an original exit poll conducted during the 2008 Ghanaian election, we show that doubts about ballot secrecy correlate with vote buying, intimidation efforts, and measures of campaign intensity, suggesting that they are a deliberate product of party efforts. Pervasive doubts about ballot secrecy challenge the notion that African parties are too weak to implement contingent electoral strategies. African parties can and do convince voters that their vote choices are known, particularly in urban areas where party capacity and community accessibility are highest. Doubts about ballot secrecy enable both vote buying and voter intimidation strategies, and suggest that formal rules enshrining the secret ballot offer insufficient protection to African voters."