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Cheating the Machine: E-voting Practices in Kyrgyzstan’s Local Elections

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 March 2020

Arzuu Sheranova
Arzuu Sheranova*
Affiliation:
The Doctoral School of Political Science, Corvinus University of Budapest, Fovám tér 8, Budapest1093, Hungary. Email: arzuusher@gmail.com
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Abstract

This paper analyses the e-voting experience of the local elections undertaken by Osh city Council in 2016. The process was introduced to ensure fair and democratic elections in Kyrgyzstan after continuous and repeated violent political uprising. The e-system, based on biometrics registration, biometric identification of voters and automated vote counting, was designed to help to avoid the most common election frauds: vote buying, carousel voting and group/family voting. The case study, mainly based on interviews, illustrates the adaptation and modernization of strategies to resist and cheat within the e-voting system. The analysis outlines three widely practised cheating strategies: procedural violations, such as avoiding cross-checking of manual and automated counting and allowing voting without biometrical identification; transformation of bribery into ‘vote auctioning’; and strengthening of kinship-based/regional support and tribal/regional identity under conditions of e-voting.

Type
Articles
Information
European Review , Volume 28 , Issue 5 , October 2020 , pp. 793 - 809
Copyright
© Academia Europaea 2020

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