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Does NOTA Option Availability Affect Voting in a Polarized Environment

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Does NOTA Option Availability Affect Voting in a Polarized Environment Does NOTA Option Availability Affect Voting in a Polarized Environment? Evidence from Ukrainian Parliamentary Elections 2006 – 2012 By Anton Tyshkovskyi Submitted to Central European University Department of Economics In partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Economic Policy on Global Markets Supervisor: Professor Alessandro De Chiara CEU eTD Collection Budapest, Hungary 2016 Abstract What is the message of voting? Apart from elections results and turnout, we can also explore meaningful patterns in various protest voting activities (abstention, ballot spoiling and NOTA support). The mechanism of the effect of none of the above voting is not well understood. In this study we analyzed the effect of NOTA option on different aspects of voting, using the data from Central Election Commission of Ukraine for three consecutive Parliamentary elections 2006-2012 in this country. Our study suggests that variation in NOTA option support across different regions can be explained by the level of homogeneity of political preferences of voters. We also find that abolition of NOTA option in 2012 increased the share of votes received by small parties on the next election, while there is no effect on turnout and the number of spoiled ballots. Those results are robust to different specifications and several robustness checks tests. Keywords: none of the above, political behavior, political polarization, protest voting, Ukraine, voting and elections CEU eTD Collection ii Acknowledgements Firstly, I would like to express my gratitude to Professor Alessandro De Chiara for his continuous supervision, patience and valuable comments at different stages of the thesis writing process. Secondly, I would like to thank the CEU Department of Economics for the inspiring academic environment, excellent faculty and staff members, and brilliant students. Last but not least, this thesis could not have been completed without the help and support from my family and friends to whom I am indebted. CEU eTD Collection iii Table of Contents List of Tables ................................................................................................................................................ v List of Figures .............................................................................................................................................. vi 1. Introduction ......................................................................................................................................... 1 2. Theoretical Approaches to the Analysis of Protest Voting .......................................................... 3 2.1. Rational Choice Explanation .................................................................................................... 3 2.2. Forms of Protest Voting ........................................................................................................... 4 2.3. Summary of previous empirical studies .................................................................................. 6 3. Ukrainian Political System After the Orange Revolution.............................................................. 9 3.1. Presidential Elections of 2004 and Political Polarization in Ukraine ................................. 9 3.2. Ukrainian Electoral System ..................................................................................................... 11 3.3. History of NOTA voting in Ukraine .................................................................................... 13 4. Methodology and Estimation Strategy ........................................................................................... 17 4.1. Matching Procedure and Data Description.......................................................................... 17 4.2. Alternative Hypotheses of the Effect of NOTA on Voting ............................................. 18 4.3. Model(s) specification .............................................................................................................. 21 5. Results ................................................................................................................................................. 24 5.1. The effect of political polarization on NOTA voting ........................................................ 24 5.2. Hypotheses testing ................................................................................................................... 25 6. Conclusion .......................................................................................................................................... 30 CEU eTD Collection References ................................................................................................................................................... 33 Appendices .................................................................................................................................................. 38 iv List of Tables Table 1. Correlation between Pro-European and Pro-Russian party votes in Ukraine (2006-2012). ........... 10 Table 2. Votes for NOTA in Parliamentary Elections (1998-2007). ................................................................. 14 Table 3. Descriptive statistics. .................................................................................................................................. 18 Table 4. The effect of political polarization on NOTA voting. .......................................................................... 24 Table 5. The effect of NOTA abolition on Turnout............................................................................................ 26 Table 6. The effect of NOTA abolition on spoiled (invalid) ballots. ................................................................ 27 Table 7. The effect of NOTA abolition on minor party vote. ............................................................................ 29 Table 8. Third round of Presidential election voting (2004) vs. Parliamentary Election (2012) ................... 38 Table 9. Number and size of constituencies, by region (2006-2012) ................................................................. 39 CEU eTD Collection v List of Figures Figure 1. NOTA Share in Presidential Elections (1999-2010). ........................................................... 15 Figure 2. Distribution of Herfindahl Index score (2006) ..................................................................... 40 Figure 3. Distribution of Herfindahl Index score (2007) ..................................................................... 40 Figure 4. NOTA support and Herfindahl Index (2006 - 2007) ........................................................... 41 Figure 5. Distribution of votes for small parties (2012 Parliamentary election) ............................... 41 CEU eTD Collection vi 1. Introduction One of the most interesting practical questions in the modern political science is how to increase voter turnout and encourage people to vote. There are many possible measures that proved to be efficient in increasing voter participation: moving election days to weekends, automatic registration of voters (Powell, 1986), simplification of rules for early voting (Gronke et. al., 2007). From libertarian paternalistic point of view, optimal policy will affect the behavior in a right way while respecting individual freedoms of citizens. According to this theory, compulsory voting scheme is not a libertarian paternalistic policy, while the improvement of a ballot design is. One of the form of the improvement of the ballot design is the introduction of NOTA option. None of the Above (NOTA) option allows voters to express their disapproval of all of the candidates presented on the ballot. Proponents of NOTA argue that it may improve the quality of future campaigns, because candidates will fear to see “too many” against all votes, and will run more substantive campaigns (Damore et al., 2012). There are several countries, where this option is legal: Bangladesh, Columbia, India, Greece, Spain, and US state of Nevada. Previously it was also available in Russia (until 2006) and Ukraine (until 2012). Still there is a strong public demand to return this option into legislature in these two countries. For example, according to the Levada- Center poll almost 74% of Russians supported the return of NOTA to the actual ballots in 2014, while approximately 20% of Ukrainians said that they would like to vote for NOTA, if they had such an opportunity on the Parliamentary election in 2012 (Razumkov Center). Moreover, even in some Western countries like the UK, Ireland and France there are organizations arguing about the introduction of a legal opportunity to vote against all of the proposed candidates. CEU eTD Collection In this study we are analyzing NOTA voting in a broader context of protest voting. Comparing with all other forms of protest voting behavior (abstention, minor party support and ballot spoiling), NOTA support is a much clearer (articulated) evidence of voter dissatisfaction. There is a clear gap in the academic literature in the studies related to protest voting activities, their 1 determinants and potential effects. This study aims at contributing to the empirical literature of the effect of NOTA option on different aspects of voting. We take advantage of unique institutional setup in Ukraine, where this option was previously available, but was abolished later. This paper shows that constituency level differences in support of NOTA option
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