Suspicious Behavior: Using Election Forensics to Detect and Explain Election Manipulation in Russia and Ukraine

press release: CREECA's weekly lecture series takes place in Room 210 of Ingraham Hall.

Cole Harvey, Postdoctoral Fellow, Wisconsin Russia Project

Election forensics is a growing field of statistical techniques that can be used to detect suspicious patterns in election data. Researchers are increasingly turning to such methods to detect and evaluate potential manipulation in elections, both internationally and in the US. This lecture will present a brief overview of the state of the art, discuss the benefits and drawbacks of the election forensic approach, and then demonstrate how election forensic methods can be used to study variation in electoral manipulation at the subnational level in Russia and Ukraine. In particular, it will show how the type of election manipulation that parties employ in a territory depends both on their access to patronage resources and the degree to which they face political risks in that region.