TY  - JOUR
AU  - Chaves,Isaías N.
AU  - Fergusson,Leopoldo
AU  - Robinson,James A.
TI  - He Who Counts Elects: Determinants of Fraud in the 1922 Colombian Presidential Election
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 15127
PY  - 2009
Y2  - July 2009
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w15127
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w15127.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Isaias N. Chaves
Stanford University
Department of Political Science
Encina Hall West
616 Serra St.
Stanford, CA 94305
E-Mail: isa.chaves.v@gmail.com

Leopoldo Fergusson
Universidad de los Andes
Department of Economics
Cra 1 No 18A - 12
Bogotá, Colombia
E-Mail: lfergusson@uniandes.edu.co

James A. Robinson
Harvard University
Department of Government
N309, 1737 Cambridge Street
Cambridge, MA  02138
Tel: 617/496-2839
Fax: 617/495-0438
E-Mail: jrobinson@gov.harvard.edu
AB  - This paper constructs measures of the extent of ballot stuffing (fraudulent votes) and electoral coercion at the municipal level using data from Colombia's 1922 Presidential elections. Our main findings are that the presence of the state reduced the extent of ballot stuffing, but that of the clergy, which was closely imbricated in partisan politics, increased coercion. We also show that landed elites to some extent substituted for the absence of the state and managed to reduce the extent of fraud where they were strong. At the same time, in places which were completely out of the sphere of the state, and thus partisan politics, both ballot stuffing and coercion were relatively low. Thus the relationship between state presence and fraud is not monotonic.
ER  -