From Blank Stares Come Blank Ballots:

Poor Candidate Information and the Prevalence of Null Votes in the World’s First Democratic National Judicial Elections (Bolivia 2011)

Rough draft only; please do not cite

By Todd A. Eisenstadt and Jennifer Yelle, American University

eisensta@american.edu

Abstract: Using the unique case of Bolivia’s 2011 Constitutional Court elections, where vote was mandatory and there was no legal campaigning or campaign spending, and nearly 2/3 of the electorate cast blank or null votes, we weigh in on one side of the US debate over state-level judicial elections, arguing that, at the national-level too, judicial elections are a bad idea. Voters do not seem to differentiate between candidates based on qualifications or experience, and instead draw distinctions based on perceptions of partisanship and ethnic identity. Using the null and blank votes cast as the dependent variable, we show that blank votes were cast more frequently in municipalities where there was NOT a substantial amount of support for the ruling MAS party. We also found qualifications had no impact on the casting of votes. We consider implications for the election of judges, concluding that, even controlling for structural obstacles to candidate differentiation in the view of the electorate (e.g., illiteracy), Bolivian voters had difficulty differentiating candidate quality. This confirms the claim made continuously by one side in the US case, arguing that judicial elections may not yield the most qualified judges.

The first democratic national judicial elections in modern history1 were held in October 2011 in Bolivia, widely repudiating the argument sometimes made in political science literature on the U.S. states, where two thirds elect some state-level judges, that electing judges would make the bench more accountable and representative. Voters cast more blank and null votes in the race than in any other democratic election in modern history (IDEA database). Indeed, well over half of the votes cast in that remote Andean nation of 11 million people were disqualified because they were blank or otherwise “null,” and a majority of voters in an exit poll explained that they did not have sufficient information upon which to base a reasoned choice. Moreover, nearly all of the two dozen experts interviewed unanimously qualified the election results as disappointing, as the winning candidates possessed very little judicial experience, and many are not even lawyers. Indeed, the Plurinational Constitutional Tribunal justice who garnered the highest number of votes made national news, to the disdain of nearly all the experts interviewed, across the political spectrum,2 by stating nonchalantly that difficult cases are better decided by consulting coca leaves than laws.3

As pointed out by Driscoll and Nelson (2012), the Bolivian judicial elections offered an excellent opportunity to explore the effects of candidate quality and voters’ choices on judicial elections, because individual campaigning was forbidden, media coverage censored, the election was a “first” (meaning that there were no incumbents to possess an advantage), and candidate pre-selection ensured gender parity and that some 35 percent of the candidates self-identified as indigenous. But these authors, using votes cast by municipality (N=328) as their unit of analysis, found that voters did not necessarily elect the most qualified judges, but perhaps used ascriptive criteria to elect the candidates “most like them” in ethnic and gender terms, and also considered candidates’ partisan affiliations, even though the elections were non-partisan, and candidates were allegedly independent of party identification.

More important than the other experimental conditions present for the election cited by Driscoll and Nelson, may have been Bolivia’s compulsory voting law, which meant that every registered citizen had to cast a ballot, including the majority, who either opposed the candidates or the process, or simply were too uniformed to cast any ballot at all. And if elections are supposed to be positive statements about competition between qualified candidates in a free and fair contest to decide the vital issue of who governs, the Bolivian judicial contest was decidedly a 1 Driscoll, Amanda and Michael J. Nelson. 2012 typescript. “Electing Judges in Comparative Perspective; The Bolivian Experience” The authors clarify that while Japan has judicial retention elections, Bolivia is the only democracy to use elections for judicial selection.

2 See for example, interviews with Cortez, Costa Benavidez, Murillo, Pinto, Revollo, and Rodríguez Veltzé.

3 Radio Fides, March 16, 2012. “Se ratifica Magistrado Gualberto Cusi: "La coca es mejor que las leyes." Accessed October 5, 2012 at http://www.radiofides.com/noticia/politica/Magistrado_Gualberto_Cusi_La_coca_es_mejor_que_las_leyes

failure. Some 58 percent of the ballots were disqualified in the Plurinational Constitutional Tribunal race, or three times as many as those disqualified in recent municipal elections, where voting is also compulsory.

Like Driscoll and Nelson, this article tests hypotheses about the election versus appointment of judges. However, unlike those authors, who evaluated the electoral results consistent with the U.S. judicial election literature, we ask a larger question. Rather than using candidate professional qualifications, age, past government affiliation, and demographic variables to assess the dependent variables of which candidates actually won, we instead call into question the entire process. Instead of evaluating the determinants of who won, we elaborate various means of showing that the elections undermined citizen confidence in the judicial branch and then, given this overwhelming citizen and elite perception of electoral failure, we look at determinants of null and blank votes. We consider the Plurinational Constitutional Tribunal, created in 2009 to interpret Bolivia’s large corpus of laws relating to indigenous and other constitutional rights, as we feel this election (among the four judicial elections held simultaneously), presents the best “hard case.” That is, if voters were not interested in the magistrates who would adjudicate this extensive, concrete and newly created set of laws, then they would probably also not be interested in the Judicial Council (which hears administrative and punitive cases against other magistrates) and the Agricultural Court, which adjudicates land disputes.4

The US-centered literature focused on whether voters can differentiate candidates sufficiently on qualifications and platforms. However, in developing democracies, partisanship, ruling party clientelism and structural variables (poverty and literacy) may be important. This article seeks to test both of these literatures, which emerge from diverse contexts in order to explain the anomalous results. Bolivia achieved the highest rate of blank or null votes recorded on any of the 468 compulsory voting elections in 28 nations found in International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance data base (http://www.idea.int/vt/viewdata.cfm) , no others achieved 58 percent “spoilt/non-effective” outcome. Indeed, the 58 percent null or blank ballots out of 4.7 million votes cast in Bolivia’s October 2011 election was a higher percentage of blank or null votes than in any other modern democratic election on record (IDEA data). Even within Bolivia, the election was highly anomalous. Turnout in 2011 judicial election was 60 percent (despite compulsory voting law), and 58 percent of the votes cast were invalid. In the six other national elections (legislative and presidential contests in 2009, 2005, and 2002), the average turnout was 84 percent and only 5 percent of the votes were ruled as invalid. What explains this dramatic change?

Our central claim is that the difference between judicial candidate qualifications is not very great, and, given the partisan nature of the establishment of the judicial elections and also 4 The Supreme Court elections were also held concurrently, but there were only a few candidates for each of the nine positions in each province, as one was elected by each of Bolivia’s nine subnational administrative departments (“states”). The other three contests had the same candidates on every ballot in the nation.

the conduct of these elections (despite the allegations of neutrality), these elections were not destined to allow voters to select the best qualified and most experienced jurists. Indeed, several legal experts interviewed cited Gualberto Cusi Mamani, the highest vote-getter among Plurinational Constitutional Tribunal victors, who last March told the national media in Bolivia that when he has a difficult case, such as one with constitutional implications, he seeks to “read” coca leaves. Populations were not able to differentiate between candidates because they did not have sufficient information about 1) the candidates themselves and 2) what makes a good judge. Furthermore, there was absolutely no information about platforms.

Much of Bolivia did not have access to campaign materials. A ban on campaigning meant that all voters were privy to the same state-provided campaign literature. Yet these written brochures aid the literate voters but leave the illiterate voters at a loss of verbal campaign events. Indeed, we find that illiterate voters were more likely to have no information about the election and file ineligible (blank or null) votes.

Even without this lack of information about the candidates, populations often have trouble discerning which candidate would make a better judge. The American political science literature argues that people are often unable to rank qualifications sufficiently for this vocation because the large majority of the population does not understand the role of judge sufficiently. We find evidence for this as well in Bolivia, mending the gap between the narrowly focused U.S. judicial elections literature and other countries experiments with the democratization of the judiciary. This lack of information causes voters to turn to other possible cues for discerning which candidate to choose—if any. While the bans on campaigning were posited to hinder a possible clientelistic arrangement with poor and rural voters (the vast majority throughout Bolivia), we still find evidence that these structural conditions (poverty, indigeneity, ties to President Morales’ Movement Toward Socialism, or MAS party, and rural locales) vulnerable to clientelistic influence correlated with increased blank and null balloting in the judicial elections.

We test these claims using municipal-level results from the 2011 judicial election as well as looking at data from Bolivia’s most recent completed census (still the one from 2001), and from a survey conducted in major cities after the election. Our premise comes from preliminary analysis of the survey by the international polling firm IPSOS. When asked5 how informed the respondent felt about the candidate (none/little/enough/very informed), the majority of respondents felt little informed. When broken down into education groups, the majority of respondents answered “little informed” most frequently within their educational group except for the least educated who felt “not informed.” Thus most illiterate voters responded that they felt less informed than the average voter. Indeed, for all groups, when asked why they think people might not vote in the judicial election, the overwhelming majority (1,394/2,080 = 67%) said lack of information about the candidates. When broken down by education level this is the most popular response for each group.

5 We report data from IPSOS after the election only.

The second most popular reason given (253/2,080 = 12%) to why the respondents think citizens might not vote in the judicial election, is ‘because of a suspicion that the candidates were affiliated with President Evo Morales’ Movement to Socialism Party (MAS in Spanish). These responses tended to be given by more educated respondents ( 39/197, 19.8%, of all college educated said this and 8/24, 33.3%, of all post graduates said this). In a similar vein, 18.2% of all non-educated people (4/22) said that people would not vote because they want to approve of the opposition. In the following section, we discuss the literature on voting in judicial election as considered in the U.S. debate, but also the clientelism literature, and then develop null hypotheses based on conventional explanations, as well as a couple based on the clientelism literature.

Literature Review: Broadening the US-Centered Judicial Elections Debate

The Bolivian election touches upon two overlapping debates in the judicial elections literature. The most prominent question in the literature is whether voters are qualified to choose between candidates, meaning, do they understand the qualifications which make a successful judge (e.g., previous adjudication record, etc) or are they forced to rely on other, often problematic, cues (e.g., party affiliation, sex, religious-ethnic cues, name familiarity). This debate overlaps with the larger, more normative, debate of whether judicial systems should emphasize accountability, via elections, or independence, via judicial appointments. Using this US-based literature on judicial elections, we are able to theoretically situate the Bolivian experiment and show that components of the US literature have applicability outside of the fifty states, but we are also able to expand upon this literature by introducing new variables found in Bolivia, such as clientelism. We first explore the theoretical underpinning of the US judicial elections literature and then contextualize the case of Bolivia with regard to this literature. We then delve deeper into the case of Bolivia and discuss the importance of clientelistic relations in affecting the judicial elections. We test these hypotheses and conclude that the narrow judicial elections literature is limited in explaining voter behavior in Bolivia and that a more historical, institutional perspective is needed to understand the (lack of) voting in Bolivia. The results of this analysis have large consequences for the more normative debate over whether appointing judges or electing judges is most in the public interest. We show that voting for judges does not introduce accountability (as is argued in the literature) when institutions have a history of clientelistic type behaviors.

To begin, we turn to the literature on voting behavior in judicial elections. In this line of research, the question is often whether voters have enough information about the candidates to make a decision between candidate qualifications or whether they are forced to rely on other, often problematic, cues such as gender or religious-ethnic cues. Those scholars who are skeptical of the virtues of judicial elections often state that the voting population does not have the requisite knowledge to judge the candidates in these elections, thus they rely on other problematic cues for their decision and the result is a system which produces biased/inferior selection of candidates. On the other hand, proponents of judicial elections state that many of

these other indicators (religion, gender, etc) are not necessarily problematic and are used throughout all democratic election processes in legislative and executive elections as well.

In most regards judicial elections resemble legislative elections. Scholars have found the whole gambit of voting cues to be a significant factor affecting voting behavior: party cues matter for voters’ decisions (Dubois 1979a, 1980a:70-79, Barber 1971, Adamany and Dubois 1976:756-60 found in Dubois 1984:398; Gann Hall 2007:1156); incumbency advantage matters (Dubois 1979a:771-75, 1980a:79-82 found in Dubois 1984:398 Griffin and Horan 1981:22-23 found in Dubois 1984:403); name familiarity matters (Dubois 1979a:771-75, 1980a:79-82 found in Dubois 1984:398); religious-ethnic cues matters (Nagel, 1973:20-21, 23 found in Dubois 1984:398); gender matters (Dubois 1984:419; Dubois 1980a:81, found in Dubois 1984:398); relative position on ballot (Dubois 1980a:81, found in Dubois 1984:398); Newspaper endorsements matter (Dubois 1984:419); ballot roll-off (voting during other state-wide elections) matter (Gann Hall 2007:1156); voter pamphlets matter (Beechen 1974:244 found in Dubois 1984:410); and occupational history matters (e.g., lawyer, municipal judge, etc written on ballot) (Dubois 1980a:81, found in Dubois 1984:398). Thus the literature suggests that voting behavior in judicial elections is very similar to voting behavior in legislative elections but with two very important differences: campaign spending and voter awareness. Unlike other elections where campaign spending is posited to be a highly potent factor affecting voter choice, voter decisions in judicial elections are not seen to be greatly affected by campaign spending. When it does matter, Dubois (1984:430) found that it only matters for small towns and Bonneau (2007: 496) found that it only matters for challengers, not incumbents.

In terms of voter awareness, scholars have found that a lack of awareness of courts, judicial contests, and the identity of specific candidates is a salient factor affecting a voter’s choice (or non-choice) in a judicial candidate (Klots 1973; Jacob 1966; Ladinsky and Silver 1967; Adamany and Dubois 1976; Johson et al 1978; Roper 1981 found in Dubois 1984:403). However, not all scholars agree (see: Lovrish and Sheldon 1983: 245-46; Philip et al; 1976; found in Dubois 1984; Gann Hall and Bonneau 2006:29-30; Bonneau and Gann Hall 2003:342-343). This contention boils down to the question of whether voters understand the judicial process enough to be able to choose which candidate is more qualified. Scholars who reject the virtues of judicial elections believe that the lack of information about the judicial elections significantly impedes the ability of the election to turn into a mechanism for accountability; whereas, proponents of judicial elections believe that the amount of discretion—even if small—used by judges mandates that they be held accountable to the people, for this is the foundation of democratic theory.

A recent debate by Carrington (2011), a proponent of judicial appointment, and Gaylord (2012), a proponent of judicial election highlight all this point of contention. In making his case for judicial elections, Gaylord (2012) uses the statistical analysis of Bonneau and Hall (2009). Bonneau and Hall analyzed US state Supreme Court elections and found that voters are indeed able to distinguish between different qualifications of judges. As explained by Bonneau and Hall

(2009:13 cited in Gaylord:73-74), "[w]hen casting votes among supreme court candidates, voters distinguish challengers who have experience on the bench from challengers who lack it and thus are less suitable alternatives to incumbents." However, this statement is hardly an accepted truth. Carrington (2011:1984) provides many examples of flawed judicial elections in the United States due to a lack of voter awareness. He notes how a reoccurring result has been "the occasional success of grievously unqualified candidates who happened to share a name with a popular figure." He give the example of Donald Burt Yarborough, "who was elected in 1976 at the age of thirty-five to the Supreme Court of Texas because voters thought that he was the same Don Yarborough for whom they had voted in races for other state offices (who was, in turn, mistaken for Ralph Yarborough, a United States Senator." (2011:1984). In the case of Bolivia, Driscroll and Nelson (2012) did not find any evidence that voters were able to distinguish between candidates qualifications. They find that voters acted on other cues, mainly ethnicity and party affiliation. We have also noted through surveys conducted by IPSOS this lack of candidate awareness6. However, unlike Driscroll and Nelson, we find that that a more important facet of voting behavior was the lack of voting in an election where voting was compulsory. While lack of awareness of candidates may have shaped voting behavior for those who chose a candidate, essentially turning votes towards partisan affiliates and co-ethnics; we find that the bigger effect on voting behavior was the intense allegations of MAS corruption in the judicial elections design, essentially spurring wide-spread non-participation. We argue that this rejection of the judicial election--through null votes--is not so much about which voter cues were emphasized and to what extent, but rather, is a deeper matter of institutional legitimacy.

Clientelistic relations are defined as "a person of social status (the patron) and a second person of low status (the client) agree to exchange goods and services … to mutual benefit" (Hilgers 2008). These exchanges do not have to be equal, only fulfill mutual expectations (Hilgers 2008). Centralized power is the core of a governing power to impose clientelistic relations, as leaders have a greater ability to keep subsidiary actors and organization in line. While we do not have strong evidence of the existence of clientelistic networks being actively mobilized, we can argue indirectly that the pre-conditions of clientelism (poverty, indigeneity, rural origins, prior support for MAS) do correspond to the active casting of votes for the ostensibly non-partisan judicial candidates.

Judicial Elections without Priming or Cues, but with Mandatory Voting, Undistinguished Candidates, Claims of Partisanship, and Ethnic Polarization

What factors led to the construction of such a powerful natural experiment of a judicial election with no legal campaigning or partisanship, allowing us to test whether candidate quality could be discerned in the absence of campaigns? The 2009 constitution contained a provision for judicial elections which was heavily debated. As part of the constituent assembly’s interest in 6 The IPSOS study was 2100 face-to-face interviews collected in November 2011 in ten urban centers throughout the country. As per Appendix, many rural residents were interviewed, but they were all interviewed in the ten provincial capitals.

promoting multicultural rights, a “plurinational judicial authority” was created. “The election was to ‘wash’ the judicial branch, which has been controlled by the executive branch since Law 003 of 2010,” according to one noted law school professor and analyst (Costa Benavides interview), referring to a law calling for renewal of the judicial branch and attorney general as part of Bolivia’s transition to the new constitution. Any citizen filing the basic age requirement with a college degree was eligible, and quotas were placed to require regional parity, gender equality, and indigenous representation.

Critics (Murillo, Revollo, and Rodríguez Veltzé interviews) argued that Morales had stacked the electoral tribunal when he replaced the authorities there after winning in 2009 the 2/3 majority in Congress his party needed to appoint judges. Former president and Constitutional Court chief Rodríguez Veltzé said that Morales had sought to stack the court but that the Constitutional Court had stopped him, leading the government to press several to resign (the five-judge body had only one judge from late 2007 until 2009). Historically, service on the nation’s highest court had 10-year terms although the average actual tenure in these posts averaged fewer than four years (Perez-Linan and Castagnola 2009, 5).

The judicial candidates were “elected” by the Congress, but only after extensive logrolling. The process was widely viewed as much more partisan than in the past (Costa Benavides, Cortez, Murillo, Revollo,Vargas Rios interviews). While many argued that candidates’ qualifications required consideration, process participants said that the MAS wanted qualifications considered only for the non-indigenous candidates, as the indigenous candidates never had the opportunities to acquire qualifications (Murillo interview). Coordinators of opposition legislators reported that the MAS caucus had selected their judicial candidates ahead of time (Revollo interview), and that the election was simply a means for President Morales to legitimize a take-over of the judicial branch. Distinguished candidates, according to former chief justice Rodríguez Veltzé, (interview) did not even submit their names to consideration, as they did not want to be judged on political, rather than judicial career, criteria. In the past, when no party had the 2/3 supermajority in the Congress enabling them to singlehandedly approve nominations, negotiations required that each party put forth strong candidates, as experience and training were prominently considered (Rodríguez Veltzé).

Observers argued that many of the candidates had ties to MAS and to the government, and that labor unions promoted candidates. Over 43 percent of the candidates did have media-reported ties to the MAS, including several who were formally government employees. And campaign material did appear prior to the election (xx). Nonetheless, no one knew the candidates, the candidates had to be promoted by the numbers they were assigned on the ballot. “It was like loteria [bingo],” said Costa Benavides. “The promoters had to use numbers in order to solve the problem of not being able to remember a ticket of five names.” The Bolivian government had to inform voters about the candidates by distributing pamphlets and inserting bland and uniform biographies into newspapers, as outright campaigning was illegal, and direct candidate media buys were also prohibited.

Descriptives

The 2011 judicial elections in Bolivia confirmed that two important tenants of the US literature on judicial elections, party-cues and candidate experience, matter. Along with Dubois (1980:81), we confirm that experience matters. Candidates who had previous experience as a judge written next to their name in the official ballot pamphlet tended to get more votes per municipality. Along with Barber (1971), Dubois (1980:70-79), Adamany and Dubois (1976:756-60), and Gann Hall (2007:1156), we find that party cues matter. Those candidates who somehow identified themselves with the ruling MAS tended to garner more votes (in a non-partisan election). These insights are important but do not tell the whole story. As stated in the introduction, we chose to look at the percent of non-votes rather than the percent of winning votes, because of the widespread lack of voting in this compulsory election. Does it matter that experienced candidates won more of the vote when only 30 percent of the municipality voted? We argue, that the far more interesting story is why the other 70 percent of the municipality did not vote at all. To address this question, we must look at the electorate and the differences in people’s propensity to vote as opposed to the differences in candidates. In other words, we now turn to why people choose to vote in the first place instead of looking at why they choose to vote the way they do.

A main debate about what drives this participation is centered on voter awareness. Scholars are split on whether the lack of awareness of courts, judicial contests, and the identity of specific candidates can affect whether a voter will feel competent enough to attempt to make a decision (those who argue that voter awareness stymies participation include Klots 1973; Jacob 1966; Ladinsky and Silver 1967; Adamany and Dubois 1976; Johson et al 1978; Roper 1981 found in Dubois 1984:403; those who argue that it does not have a substantial impact: Lovrish and Sheldon 1983: 245-46; Philip et al; 1976; found in Dubois 1984; Gann Hall and Bonneau 2006:29-30; Bonneau and Gann Hall 2003:342-343). We use census data from 2001 and election results from local races in 2009 to test for correlates of the large number of null and blank votes cast by municipality (our dependent variable). Along with the voter awareness theory of non-participation, we also test a theory of clientelism. While clientelism is often absent from the US literature, it is pervasive in studies of Latin American institutions and is often spoken of as the main driver of participation in the judicial elections in Bolivia. Surveying in Bolivia prior to the election offers evidence of both of these theories. The overwhelming majority of respondents thought that citizens might not vote in the judicial election because of a lack of information about the candidates (67 percent). The second most popular reason given to why the respondents think citizens might not vote in the judicial election, is ‘because of a suspicion that the candidates were affiliated with President Evo Morales’ MAS party (12 percent).

We run an OLS linear regression model to test these two theories. The dependent variable is the percent of null votes. Although our dependent variable is measured as a percentage, we decided to treat it as linear since nearly all of the percentages fall between 20 percent and 80 percent. Null and blank votes account for 58 percent of the total votes. We added

blank votes and null votes in each of 328 municipalities (with official data for 311).

To test the role of clientelistic ties to the MAS, we introduce four measures. First, we test the support that the MAS had in the previous 2009 elections. Second, we test the percent of the municipality that identifies as indigenous. Third, we test the percent of the municipality that has dirt floors in their house as a measure of poverty. Fourth, we include the percent of the municipality that is rural. This demographic, the rural, indigenous, poor, is the MAS’s clientelistic base. These data are from the 2001 Bolivian census and the Bolivian Supreme Electoral Tribunal (compiled by Miguel Centellas).

To test whether voters were uninformed and this contributed to the high null votes, we included a measure of the percent of illiterate voters in the municipality from 2001. Ideally, we would have data that show whether a person felt informed enough to make a decision about the judicial election. These data do not exist. Therefore we are left with only proxy measures of voter awareness. One interesting aspect about the 2011 judicial election is the prohibition of campaign materials. This aids our decision to use a proxy variable as we can be relatively confident that voters had access to the same information about the judiciary and the judicial candidates. The only major variance left is whether the voter feels they are able to make a decision about the judicial election based on the government-provided pamphlet. To test this we use a measure of literacy. This is because there is a clear difference in voter awareness among those voters who can read the pamphlet--the only source of information about the election7--and those voters who can not read the pamphlet. In other types elections, other forms of campaigning mitigate the effect of literacy on awareness. Illiterate voters can access campaigns via radio programming, TV commercials, or live stump speeches. When campaigns are banned and the only information about the candidates and the judiciary is a written pamphlet, literacy makes for an ideal test of voter awareness. To measure literacy, we also use the most recent census data available, from 2001. The national literacy rate in 2001 was 78 percent. Regionally, this percent varied from a low of 65 percent literacy in Chuquisaca to a high of 84 percent in Oruro.

Non-participation in the 2011 judicial election was spread throughout the nine regions (departamentos) of Bolivia. Table 1 below shows the average percentage of null and blank votes per municipality, broken down by region.

Table 1: Descriptive Statistics By Region

Department Ave % Null Votes

Ave % MAS Support 2009

Ave % Indigenous

Ave % Literate

Ave % in Poverty

7 We have little reason to suspect that the pamphlets were not evenly distributed across Bolivia. Anecdotal evidence suggests that some areas did not receive the materials, but this problem does not seem to have been systematic.

La Paz 35% 87% 63% 79% 77%

Cochabamba 41% 77% 61% 75% 66%

Oruro 41% 86% 64% 84% 63%

Potosí 42% 80% 58% 72% 70%

Chuquisaca 44% 65% 54% 65% 69%

Tarija 62% 55% 58% 76% 45%

Pando 63% 42% 56% 75% 49%

Santa Cruz 65% 45% 60% 82% 50%

Beni 70% 35% 55% 81% 74%

On a regional-level the only variable which stands out as a strong correlate of the null and blank votes is the percent of MAS support in the prior subnational election, the municipal contests of 2009. As the regional percent of null and blank votes increases, the percent of support for the ruling MAS decreases. This is what people suspicious of clientelism would expect to find: MAS supporters are enticed to participate through clientelistic arrangements. The other variables--at the regional level--do not appear to be strongly correlated with the percent of null and blank votes. The region of Santa Cruz, containing some of the wealthiest residents of Bolivia, had one of the highest rates of non-participation (65 percent cast blank or null votes). Only the poor Amazonian region of Beni surpassed Santa Cruz in non-participation (achieving a remarkable 70 percent blank or null vote percentage). This lack of correlation is not entirely surprising considering the heterogeneous nature of these regions, containing both rich and poor, indigenous and mestizo, literate and illiterate.

We empirically test these data using an OLS regression at the municipal-level in order to flesh out the relationships between voter demographics and their propensity to vote. We separate our dependent variable into two slightly different groups. The first dependent variable measures the percent of null votes per municipality. The second dependent variable measures the percent of blank votes per municipality. We separate out these two distinct classifications to allow for the possibility that null votes, those altered in a manner leading to their disqualification, measure active opposition to the election and blank votes, those cast without being filled out, measures passive opposition.

Indeed, active campaigns were conducted to persuade voters to abandon the election by opposition members who claimed that the elections were rigged by the MAS. Since elections are compulsory, the opposition members compelled voters to leave their ballots blank. On the other

hand, null votes are comprised of those ballots that contained an erroneous or unclear mark; for example, if someone voted for two candidates instead of one. To be sure that we are not capturing an opposition effect (active resistance to voting through an intentionally blank ballot), as opposed to a lack of awareness effect (passive resistance to voting through a null ballot), we test both of these dependent variables. We find no difference between the two models. We believe this similarity is due to the fact that what should occur in theory and what occurs in practice is often conflated. Although “blank” votes could in theory be more closely related to opposition protests and “null” votes be more closely related to mistakes and the mismarking of ballots, this is far from a solid pattern. To provide a couple of examples that illustrate how blank and null are often conflated: One voter could actively protest the election by putting a dash across the paper, making it a “null” instead of a “blank.” One illiterate voter could not understand the ballot and may be tempted to just leave the ballot blank, creating a “blank” vote instead of a “null” vote. We present both models below. These data are provided by xxx.

Finally, we also include a control variable for the municipalities previous non-participation rate. We include the percent of null and blank votes from the 2009 xxx election. This is an important control as it allows for the variation in null and blank votes to be specific to the 2011 judicial election. Municipalities that normally do not vote in elections will not bias the data. The dependent variable captures the variation in non-participation in the judicial election of 2011, holding normal levels of non-participation constant.

Table II: Regressing Null Votes on Voter Awareness and Pre-conditions of Clientelism

DV: NULL VOTES

Unstandardized Coefficients

Standard Error Standardized Coefficients

P-Value

% Rural - 341.5 55.7 -. 44 <.01

% Indigenous 31.1 104.4 .02 .76

% Poor (Dirt Floor)

- 124.3 63.1 - .14 .05

% MAS Support 148.4 64.5 .14 .02

% Literate 56.2 187.9 - .02 .76

% Invalid Votes in 2009

45.5 371.2 .01 .90

Table III: Regressing Blank Votes on Voter Awareness and Pre-Conditions of Clientelism

DV: BLANK VOTES

Unstandardized Coefficients

Standard Error Standardized Coefficients

P-Value

% Rural - 83.3 9.8 - .56 <.01

% Indigenous - 6.9 18.4 - .02 .70

% Poor (Dirt Floor)

- 25.0 11.1 - .15 .02

% MAS Support 41.5 11.4 .21 <.01

% Literate - 20.2 33.2 - .04 .54

% Invalid Votes in 2009

31.3 65.6 .03 .63

These results show that the clientelism proxy variables had the biggest impact in determining the extent of null and blank votes. Three of the four measures testing clientelism—rural, ethnicity, poverty, and MAS support—are statistically significant predictors of null and blank votes.

The first variable, percent rural, measures the percent of the municipality that is rural. If a municipality had a higher percentage of rural lands (as opposed to urban lands), the percent of the vote in the judicial election that was blank or null would decrease. This is to say that more urban municipalities cast a higher percentage of null and blank ballots. Rural municipalities cast a lower percentage of null and blank ballots.

The second variable, poverty, is measured by the percent of the population that lives with a dirt floor. This coefficient is negative, indicating that municipalities that have more people in poverty tended to cast fewer null and blank ballots.

Combined these two variables show that municipalities with a greater number of rural poor tended to cast fewer null and blank ballots. This offers evidence in favor of the clientelism theory: voting is facilitated through clientelistic arrangements with the rural poor. The third variable, ethnicity, is not statistically significant.

The fourth variable, MAS support in previous elections has a positive coefficient less consistent with the argument. This means that in municipalities where MAS has a high percentage of support, there is a higher percentage of blank and null ballots. Conversely, municipalities less supportive of MAS tended to cast fewer null and blank votes. While we cannot know for certain as the IPSOS post-election survey did not ask respondents whether they

themselves had voted and for which candidate, it may be that high MAS support areas may have been more heavily contested, driving more opponents to more actively oppose the ruling party by casting more blank and null ballots.

We tested the role of voter knowledge in the election by testing whether literacy impacted the extent of null and blank ballots in the municipalities. We did not find statistical significance.

Conclusions

Campaigns, given the controversy in candidate selection and without campaigning or media coverage, could NOT generate sufficient information about candidates. The judicial candidates in Bolivia did not differentiate themselves, lending credence through this powerful test, that judicial elections, absent stronger cues from parties or professional associations (like bar associations) or extensive media coverage, do not generate the candidate identification needed for meaningful elections (i.e. contests where at least half the candidates cast valid votes).

In the Bolivian context, despite lack of public campaigning, prior votes for MAS yielded reduction in number of null votes. Was there clientelism or at least a “get out the vote” campaign? While media allegations exist that such campaigns may have existed, they were not overly successful. As said by one analyst: “At the end of the day, no one knew anyone,” said one political analyst and former constituent assembly member (Cortez interview). “The lack of knowledge about any of the candidates was complete.” Indeed, in poll conducted by IPSOS after election, an overwhelming 67% said lack of information about the candidates was why they had not voted for candidates (the distant second place reason was that 12% suspected candidates ties to President Morales or MAS).

Clearly, this is no way to (s)elect judges, not in Bolivia or anywhere else. Polarization created “noise” in the process and the models, but clearly, candidate traits did not matter; contextual politics, and structural inequalities drove meaningful participation. Allowing candidate campaigning may be a partial answer to this problem, but not the right one if the purpose of disallowing campaigns is to “de-politicize” judicial elections in the first place. A better solution might be to have judges elected by professional associations, or selected by state and national executives but ratified by bar associations and other professional bodies, who might be counted on to make a better determination of which candidates really are the most qualified.

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Appendices

Table IV: Descriptives of National Electorate in 2011 Judicial Election

Electorate Level Traits Pct of Voters Meeting Criterion

Votes for MAS in 2009 Local Election 70 percent

Pct Indigenous in Most Recent Census 60 percent

Pct Illiterate in Most Recent Census 78 percent

Pct in Poverty in Most Recent Census 66 percent

Non-effective Votes in 2009 Local Election

8 percent

Table V: Traits of Candidates as Coded from Electoral Tribunal Publicity Brochure

Trait Pct of 28 Candidates Meeting Criterion

Affiliated with MAS or 43 percent (N=12)

Government# According to media accounts xxx#

Indigenous Auto-Identification on Campaign Literature

25 percent (N=7)

Has Served as Judge/Magistrate, Litigated Case in Court, or Published this Topic# #

50 percent(N=14)