Journal of Elections, Public Opinion and Parties

ISSN: 1745-7289 (Print) 1745-7297 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/fbep20

Does fraud trump partisanship? The impact of

contentious elections on voter confidence

Elizabeth Iams Wellman, Susan D. Hyde & Thad E. Hall

To cite this article: Elizabeth Iams Wellman, Susan D. Hyde & Thad E. Hall (2018) Does fraud
trump partisanship? The impact of contentious elections on voter confidence, Journal of Elections,
Public Opinion and Parties, 28:3, 330-348, DOI: 10.1080/17457289.2017.1394865

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/17457289.2017.1394865

View supplementary material

Published online: 06 Nov 2017.

Submit your article to this journal

Article views: 120

View Crossmark data

Citing articles: 1 View citing articles

Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at

http://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=fbep20
JOURNAL OF ELECTIONS, PUBLIC OPINION AND PARTIES
2018, VOL. 28, NO. 3, 330–348
https://doi.org/10.1080/17457289.2017.1394865

Does fraud trump partisanship? The impact of

contentious elections on voter confidence
Elizabeth Iams Wellmana, Susan D. Hydeb and Thad E. Hallc
a
Department of Political Science, Yale University, New Haven, CT, USA; bDepartment of
Political Science, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA, USA; cFors Marsh Group,
Arlington, VA, USA

ABSTRACT
Fraudulent elections can reduce citizen trust in elections and other political
institutions. But what about the impact of contentious elections that resolve
successfully, leading to democratizing change? Do national movements
toward democracy trump individual experiences with electoral manipulation?
Using public opinion survey data collected before and after the 2004 Orange
Revolution in Ukraine, we evaluate changes in voter confidence in electoral
practices, political institutions, and democracy. Although national trends show
increased voter confidence overall, subnational variation suggests pervasive
partisan differences in opinions about election quality and institutional
confidence. Remarkably, we find that direct exposure to fraud matters far less
than anticipated; voters who were personally exposed to fraud felt no more
or less confident than their co-partisans. We show that partisanship and the
national electoral context may interact in ways that complicate the effects of
democratizing elections, suggesting important avenues for future research.

Introduction
Although holding elections has become an international norm, many elec-
tions throughout the world fall short of democratic ideals. The impact of con-
tentious elections, i.e. “contests involving major challenges, with different
degrees of severity, to the legitimacy of electoral actors, procedures, and out-
comes” (Norris, Frank, and i Coma 2015, 2), may have damaging effects on
longer term prospects for democracy. Numerous studies document theoreti-
cal and empirical evidence that electoral violence, manipulation, and other
hallmarks of contentious elections lower citizen trust in democratic processes
and other political institutions (Anderson et al. 2005; Bratton 2008; Birch 2008;
Esaiasson 2011; Moehler and Lindberg 2009; Simpser 2012). But what about
the impact of contentious elections that end with a successful resolution?
While fraudulent elections reduce citizen confidence in the electoral

CONTACT Elizabeth Iams Wellman elizabeth.wellman@yale.edu Department of Political Science,

Yale University, PO Box 208301, New Haven, CT 06520, USA
Supplemental data for this article can be accessed at https://doi.org/10.1080/17457289.2017.1394865.
© 2017 Elections, Public Opinion & Parties
 JOURNAL OF ELECTIONS, PUBLIC OPINION AND PARTIES 331

process, electoral revolutions and other contentious elections that are ulti-
mately viewed as “democratizing elections” should, in most cases, have the
opposite effect.
This article returns to one of the more famous examples of a democratizing
election: the Ukrainian presidential elections of 2004 and 2005, known as the
Orange Revolution. Using public opinion data collected before and after the
Orange Revolution, we examine how the context of a contentious election
cycle in which both presidential candidates experienced winning and losing
influenced citizen perceptions of political institutions. These surveys asked
citizens a battery of questions related to electoral integrity, government insti-
tutions, and their personal exposure to fraud. Together, the surveys present a
unique opportunity to evaluate how reversals of winning and losing, as well as
changes in electoral integrity – at both individual and contextual levels –
impact perceptions of democratic institutions following a contentious elec-
tion cycle which resolved successfully.1
At the national level, we find that the survey data are consistent with the
conventional wisdom about election manipulation and public opinion. On
average, Ukrainian voters exhibit decreased confidence in election quality fol-
lowing the widely criticized second round and a massive jump in confidence
after the high-quality third round. This increased confidence further extends
to a range of government institutions, including improved assessments of
the parliament, the military, and other government ministries. However, the
aggregate data obscure important partisan variation, which both complicates
this optimistic conclusion and foreshadows the persistent polarization that
continues to threaten democracy in Ukraine today. We find that the increases
in electoral and institutional confidence following the end of the 2004 election
cycle are driven by changes in attitudes within the electoral districts (oblasts)
that voted for Yushchenko, the ultimate winner of the presidency.2 Overall,
voters in Yanukovych-dominant oblasts registered little change in confidence
throughout the turbulent 2004 electoral cycle: their attitudes toward insti-
tutions and democracy did not increase dramatically when their candidate
won, and they did not decrease dramatically when their candidate lost.
Finally, although one in six survey respondents reported personal exposure
to fraud, those voters are barely distinguishable from the other voters in
their oblasts in their perceptions of electoral integrity and confidence in pol-
itical institutions. In other words, when citizens assessed the quality of the
election, partisan affiliation mattered more than personal exposure to fraud.
Our findings have a number of implications for the emerging research
agenda on contentious elections and electoral integrity (Norris 2013). First,

1
International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES) did not conduct a survey between the second and
third rounds; citizens were asked about both rounds retrospectively on the February 2005 survey.
2
We use oblast as a proxy for partisan support for numerous theoretical and empirical reasons outlined
below.
332 E. I. WELLMAN ET AL.

our findings are consistent with the idea that winner effects may be amplified
when an electoral victory takes place in the context of a clean election but
depressed in low-quality electoral contexts. Additionally, although the con-
ventional wisdom is that the difference in voter confidence between election
winners and losers is created by winners reacting positively and losers react-
ing negatively, our study is consistent with a small but growing body of litera-
ture finding strong winner effects but more ambiguous loser effects
(Anderson et al. 2005; Cantú and García-Ponce 2015; Esaiasson 2011).
Finally, if questions of democratic legitimacy and confidence in political
institutions are primarily filtered through the lens of partisanship, what
one considers a “successful” election is in the eye of the beholder.3 The
real test of democracy may not be improvements in electoral conduct but
in acceptance of the process and the potential for inclusion (Moehler and
Lindberg 2009; Przeworski 2005; Singh, Karakoç, and Blais 2012). Particularly
in developing democracies where “winner-take-all” politics may endure,
contexts where groups of citizens can anticipate experiencing both
winning and losing may be critical for building long-term trust in democracy
(Cho and Bratton 2006).

Contentious elections and voter confidence

Ample literature suggests that contentious elections are increasingly
common, particularly in transitional countries emerging from civil war or
authoritarian rule (e.g. Arriola and Johnson 2011; Birch 2010, 2011; Gandhi
and Lust-Okar 2009; Hafner-Burton, Hyde, and Jablonski 2014; Hyde and
Marinov 2014; Kuhn 2012; Norris 2014; Norris, Frank, and i Coma 2015;
Simpser 2013). By one estimation, nearly half of all elections since 1990
have some problems associated with contentious elections.4 A number of
scholars have also pointed to the negative consequences of contentious elec-
tions on voter confidence. Disillusionment with election quality is linked to
lower voter participation in a number of regional and country case studies
(Birch 2008; Bratton and de Walle 1997; Simpser 2012) as well as within
cross-national analyses (Birch 2010; Carreras and İrepoğlu 2013; Karp and
Milazzo 2015; Simpser 2013). In extreme cases, fraudulent elections serve as
the catalyst for mass uprisings against the government (e.g. Serbia 2000,
Iran 2009) as well as violent riots (e.g. Kenya 2008, Nigeria 2011) (Beaulieu
2014a; Bunce and Wolchik 2011; Hyde and Marinov 2014; Kuntz and Thomp-
son 2009; Little 2012; Meirowitz and Tucker 2013; Tucker 2007). Personal
exposure to fraud or manipulation (i.e. vote-buying) has been linked to
3
We thank a reviewer for their clarifying comments on this central implication.
4
Author’s calculation using version 4 of the NELDA data (Hyde and Marinov 2012). Out of all elections since
1990, 634 out of 1329 experienced reports of fraud (NELDA 11 or 28), violence (NELDA14 or NELDA 31),
or post-election protest (NELDA29).
 JOURNAL OF ELECTIONS, PUBLIC OPINION AND PARTIES 333

lower levels of turnout (Bratton 2008) and higher levels of support for electoral
violence (Gutiérrez-Romero 2014).
Less work explores the impact of fraudulent elections that are ultimately
resolved in a manner later characterized as “democratizing.” Such elections
could easily have both positive and negative outcomes on citizen attitudes,
and understanding these dynamics is empirically challenging. Arguably the
most famous democratizing elections are the so-called “color” revolutions in
Eurasia in the early 2000s: Serbia (2000), the Rose Revolution in Georgia
(2003), Ukraine’s Orange Revolution (2004), and the Tulip Revolution in Kyr-
gyzstan (2005). Many scholars utilized these revolutions to further theories
on social mobilization and protest, including elections as a focal point for col-
lective action (Kuntz and Thompson 2009; Tucker 2007), the importance of
international diffusion effects through civil society networks (Beissinger
2011; Bunce and Wolchik 2006, 2011), as well as the role of direct external
assistance (McFaul 2007). Indeed, the Orange Revolution was hailed as “the
most important instance of democratic breakthrough in this decade”
(McFaul 2007, 48).
Did this “democratic breakthrough” translate into increased confidence in
democratic institutions for Ukrainian citizens? It is well established that free
and fair elections are an institutional prerequisite for democracy (Dahl 1971;
Svensson and Elklit 1997). Indeed, voter confidence in the electoral process
is arguably a key aspect of broader democratic legitimacy (Alvarez, Hall, and
Llewellyn 2007, 2008; Birch 2008; Norris 2014; Norris, Frank, and i Coma
2015). As Birch (2008, 305) states, “confidence in electoral processes is argu-
ably a precondition for popular support for the other institutions of represen-
tative systems.” Other studies of post-communist countries have also found
that perceptions of electoral fairness have a significant impact on citizen con-
fidence in democracy, particularly in transitioning regimes (McAllister and
White 2015). In the case of the Orange Revolution, we expect that citizen con-
fidence in democratic institutions would decrease following the fraudulent
second round and then increase following the third round, which was con-
sidered free and fair.
Yet even a democratizing election is still a political loss for a substantive
portion of the electorate. Citizen confidence in political institutions may be
more influenced by partisan affiliation and whether one’s favored candidates
won or lost than electoral quality (McAllister and White 2011; Rose and Mishler
2009). Across a variety of institutional contexts, numerous studies document
that citizen support for an election winner increases political trust, satisfaction
with democracy, support for the political system and attitudes about the
effectiveness of the political system (Anderson et al. 2005; Anderson and
Guillory 1997; Anderson and LoTempio 2002; Anderson and Tverdova 2001;
Banducci and Karp 2003; Blais and Gélineau 2007; Esaiasson 2011; Jou 2009;
Maldonado and Seligson 2014). Citizens who support election losers have
334 E. I. WELLMAN ET AL.

more negative views of the political system and democracy overall (Anderson
et al. 2005).
Moehler and Lindberg (2009) find a wide and systematic gap in insti-
tutional confidence between those who support the parties in government
and those who support the opposition. Their empirical findings from sub-
Saharan African elections suggest that only electoral turnovers help reduce
the gap, but free and fair elections have no measurable impact on the
winner–loser divide. Other studies have also shown that losers are more sat-
isfied with democracy within political systems that facilitate greater inclusion
in contrast to majoritarian “winner-take-all” systems (Anderson and Guillory
1997; Cho and Bratton 2006; Singh 2013; Singh, Karakoç, and Blais 2012).
From this perspective, the promise of future inclusion – either through
repeated elections that allow for alternation of power or systems that
support multiple political parties gaining power – is key to democratic conso-
lidation (Anderson et al. 2005; Moehler and Lindberg 2009; Przeworski 1991,
2005).
During contentious elections, personal exposure to fraud (i.e. vote-buying)
has been linked to lower levels of turnout (Bratton 2008) and higher levels of
support for electoral violence (Gutiérrez-Romero 2014), which led to our
theoretical expectations. But even the impact of fraud on voter confidence
in democracy may be mediated through partisan affiliation. As Beaulieu
(2014b, 31) found, “individuals tend not be concerned about election integrity
if their party benefits from potential fraud.” More recent research suggests
that personal exposure to electoral misconduct may not necessarily lower per-
ceptions of election quality but may instead depend on winner–loser status as
well (Shah and Kerr 2017).
Thus, the literature offers somewhat mixed predictions from widely variant
contexts, and it is not clear how personal exposure to fraud should interact
with other experiences associated with a moment of rapid political change,
like the Orange Revolution, including changes to the election outcome and
whether the election was widely viewed as democratic. Our study brings
together previous findings from the electoral integrity literature with
studies of winner–loser effects to examine how the context of a “successful”
contentious election influences citizen confidence in electoral and political
institutions.5
We expect that citizens will have more negative perceptions following the
fraudulent second round but increased confidence in elections and insti-
tutions after the free/fair resolution of the Orange Revolution. We also antici-
pate these results will be mediated by winner–loser effects. Supporters of
Yanukovych (who won the fraudulent Round 2) will show increased

5
Note that we do not measure changes in the size of the winner–loser gap, but build on insights from this
literature.
 JOURNAL OF ELECTIONS, PUBLIC OPINION AND PARTIES 335

confidence in electoral quality and institutions after Round 2, but not Round 3;
Yushchenko supporters (who lost in the fraudulent second round but ulti-
mately won in the third round) will exhibit the opposite trend. Finally, we
expect that voters personally exposed to fraud should have lower levels of
confidence in institutions following the election, but this exposure may also
be mitigated by partisan affiliation.

Analysis and results

To better understand the impact of a democratizing election on voter confi-
dence, we analyze two public opinion surveys conducted by the firm TNS
Ukraine and fielded by IFES.6 The initial survey was conducted in October
2004, before the first round on 31 October. The second survey (TNS Ukraine
2005) was conducted in February 2005, after the fraudulent second-round
runoff election (21 November), the subsequent Orange Revolution demon-
strations, and the peaceful third round rerun of the runoff election (26 Decem-
ber).7 For each survey, TNS created a separate nationally representative
random sample of 1265 Ukrainian citizens using a multistage sampling
process.8 It is important to note that while these surveys are nationally repre-
sentative samples, they survey did not sample the same respondents before
and after the election; i.e. they are not panel data. Thus, changes in perception
between rounds should be interpreted as average changes within regions
rather than individuals necessarily changing their views.
Recent research has employed other public opinion surveys also con-
ducted during the 2004 Ukraine election cycle.9 However, the two IFES
surveys are unique in their timing and continuity: they were conducted
before the election cycle and following the resolution of the electoral crisis,
used the same survey design and sampling procedures, and repeated many
questions in both rounds. Ideal for the questions motivating this article, the
surveys asked about many dimensions of the electoral process, including
media coverage, the role of election observers, and administrative compe-
tence (see Table 1). The surveys also asked explicit questions about trust in
political institutions beyond the elections, including perceptions of local
mayors, national leaders, and the military. This provides us with an opportu-
nity to assess how the experience of a contentious election affects citizen con-
fidence in a number of political institutions beyond electoral quality. We have
6
These reports are available in the supplementary online appendix.
7
Note that an important limitation of the data is that TNS did not conduct a survey between the second
and third rounds of the election. Rather, assessments of citizen attitudes about the quality of both
rounds were asked retrospectively on the February 2005 survey. It is important to note that differences
in voter recall about their own second-round attitudes could correlate with partisanship.
8
For detailed information on the survey methodology, please see TNS Ukraine (2004, 5–8) and TNS Ukraine
(2005, 5–8) in the supplementary online appendix.
9
For example, see Beissinger (2013).
336 E. I. WELLMAN ET AL.

Table 1. Summary of IFES survey questions and recoding.

Confidence in electoral institutions: To what extent do you agree with
the following statements? Response coding
1. My vote is kept confidential by election authorities in Ukraine. 1 = Strongly agree, somewhat
2. The results of elections in Ukraine accurately reflect the way people agree;
voted in the election. 0 = Somewhat disagree,
3. Elections in Ukraine are competently administered. strongly disagree
4 I feel safe in voting however I wish in an election. Missing = Don’t know
5. I am informed about the electoral process in Ukraine.
6. Ukraine’s electoral system provides adequate means to challenge
election violations.
Confidence in political institutions
7. How much confidence do you have in The Verkhovna Rada? 1 = A great deal, a fair amount;
8. How much confidence do you have in The Cabinet of Ministers? 0 = Not very much, none at all
9. How much confidence do you have in Ukraine’s military forces? Missing = Don’t know
10. How much confidence do you have in your City/Village council?
11. How much confidence do you have in the Mayor of your city/
village?
12. Is Ukraine a democracy? 1 = Yes, 0 = No

thus chosen to evaluate voter confidence over multiple dimensions of elec-

toral integrity and government institutions. Analyzing many survey questions
allows us to observe both the overall trends as well as how changes in citizen
confidence vary across dimensions of the election and between institutions.
Indeed, relying on the results of one or two questions in isolation could be
misleading.10
We first compare average pre-election attitudes to post-election assess-
ments, measured with the variable PostSurvey, which represents 1 for all
responses in February 2005, and 0 for all responses from October 2004. The
analysis captures changes associated with the contentious election in
general. The second variable, labeled as YushOblast and YanuOblast, represents
the candidate supported by the majority in each of the oblasts surveyed, and
captures the potential winner–loser effects on voter confidence. Finally,
Fraud represents voters who were personally exposed to electoral malpractice.
If a respondent answered “yes” to whether they had been directly threatened or
offered a reward to vote in a particular way, or that they knew someone who
was threatened or offered a reward, they were included in this category. In
the February 2005 survey conducted after the final rerun of the second-
round election, 17% of respondents (N = 208) reported exposure to fraud.11
Thus, these surveys provide insights into the impact of election fraud on
voter confidence in political institutions at both individual and contextual
levels. Because questions concerning personal exposure to fraud during the

10
For example, a working paper using IFES survey data from Nigeria (Shah and Kerr 2017) takes a similar
methodological approach to ours, analyzing how different types of electoral victimization are linked to
assessments of electoral quality rather than relying on a single or index variable.
11
Self-reports of experiencing fraud can be biased and may reflect a misunderstanding of what is con-
sidered fraud in a legal sense.
 JOURNAL OF ELECTIONS, PUBLIC OPINION AND PARTIES 337

election were only included in the post-election surveys, we cannot assess the
impact of exposure to direct fraud on voter confidence before the election (e.g.
in previous Ukrainian elections) and after the election. Instead, we compare
whether voters with personal exposure to fraud during the Orange Revolution
had more or less confidence relative to their co-partisans.12
The survey also did not ask respondents for their intended vote choice, as
this can be a sensitive and unreliable question. To compare changes in
average opinions over time by partisan affiliation, we exploit the high political
polarization of Ukraine’s political geography and employ a geographic proxy
for respondents’ likely vote choice. As most oblasts in the country overwhel-
mingly voted for one side or the other and there is little change in geographic
voting patterns between rounds, we assume that if a respondent lives in a Yush-
chenko-dominant district, the respondent voted for Yushchenko for our core
analyses.13 We also use the self-reported vote choice in the second survey as
a robustness check.14 Fraudulent election results can also complicate the attri-
bution of vote choices, which makes using a proxy additionally advantageous
in this context. We then evaluate change over time, separated by which candi-
date the oblast ultimately supported. The variable YushOblast is equal to 1 if
Yushchenko won the oblast, and equal to 0 if Yanukovych won the oblast.
Each dependent variable is the voter response to the relevant survey ques-
tions on confidence in election processes and institutions listed in Table 1. For
Questions 1–6, respondents were given a statement (e.g. “Elections in Ukraine
are competently administered”) and asked to what extent they agreed with
the statement on a four-point scale (strongly agree, somewhat agree, some-
what disagree, strongly disagree). For Questions 7–12, respondents were
given a list of government institutions and leaders (e.g. “The Verkhovna
Rada” (Ukrainian Parliament)) and asked how much confidence they had in
the institution on a four-point scale (a great deal, a fair amount, not very
much, none at all). There are many ways to analyze data from Likert scales,
and little agreement on the best method. Substantively, we are most inter-
ested in comparing levels of agreement and disagreement for each statement
based on partisanship and exposure to fraud, and the difference in responses

12
Results comparing voters exposed to fraud to the overall survey population are in the SA. Voters exposed
to fraud are not statistically different in their perceptions than the survey population with the exception
of the questions noted.
13
According to the official third-round results, of the 20 oblasts included in the survey, the vote margin
between the winning and losing candidate ranged from 29% to 93%, with a majority of oblasts exhibit-
ing a margin >60% (“Ukraine. Presidential Election. 2004 | Electoral Geography 2.0” 2014). A drawback of
using the oblast proxy is that it also includes survey respondents who voted for the candidate that did
not win in their oblast (N = 208) as well as those who did not vote at all (N = 198). We find political min-
ority voters shared similar confidence levels to their co-partisans. The confidence levels of non-voters
were not statistically different from either the overall population or their oblasts. Figures are located
in the SA.
14
While the February 2005 survey asked respondents whom they voted for during each round of the elec-
tion, the survey taken in October 2004 did not include a question on likely vote choice.
338 E. I. WELLMAN ET AL.

before and after the electoral crisis. Thus, we transformed these responses
into dichotomous positive and negative values with 1 = Agree (Strongly or
Somewhat/Great Deal or Fair Amount) and 0 = Disagree (Strongly or Some-
what/Not Very Much or Not at all). Finally, Question 12 asked whether citizens
believed Ukraine was a democracy (1 = Yes and 0 = No).
For each survey question, we estimate a linear probability model with our
central explanatory variables (PostSurvey and Fraud), a vector of demographic
controls, and oblast fixed effects.15 The coefficients on the central explanatory
variables are estimates of the change in the probability that voters answer the
question positively. We also ran each model limiting the sample to either
Yushchenko-dominant or Yanukovych-dominant oblasts. This decision yields
nearly identical results as interactive models (with partisan support interacted
with our central explanatory variables), but makes the comparison between
Yushchenko and Yanukovych oblasts more straightforward. Linear probability
models have some widely recognized issues, but we agree with other scholars
who argue that they are less problematic than other options in many contexts,
particularly in a case like this in which we are interested in general positive or
negative trends rather than specific point estimates (e.g. Angrist and Pischke
2008).16

Impact of electoral revolution on voter confidence: national

aggregate
Reinforcing existing findings, Ukrainian citizens were less confident in elec-
toral processes when asked about the low-quality second-round election in
November (Figure 1). They were significantly less likely to believe their vote
was kept secret (a decrease of 9 percentage points), the results were accurate
(−14 percentage points), or the elections were competently administered (−9
percentage points). On a positive note, Ukrainians were 10 percentage points
more likely to agree that there were adequate means of challenging fraud – a
likely reflection of the mass civic demonstrations in the weeks following the
election and the decision of the Supreme Court to call for a new election.
After the successful resolution of the Orange Revolution, we find significant
and substantive increases across every question regarding electoral pro-
cedures. Comparing Round 3 attitudes to the pre-election survey, Ukrainian
citizens were 23 percentage points more confident that the results were accu-
rate, 20 percentage points more likely to agree that elections in the country
15
We present figures showing clustered standard errors in the SA. This increases the variance of our esti-
mates, though the substantive interpretation remains largely the same. Recent discussions of robust
inference note that while fixed effects do not control for within-cluster correlation of errors, there are
certain cases where only including cluster-specific fixed effects may suffice, particularly where a
common shock may be driving within-cluster error correlation (Cameron and Miller 2015).
16
The empirical analysis could estimate each response on the Likert scales, or employ alternative models
(e.g. ordered logit).
 JOURNAL OF ELECTIONS, PUBLIC OPINION AND PARTIES 339

Vote Secret?
Results Accurate
Competent Elec. Admin
I feel safe voting
I am informed
Means to Challenge
Conf. in Parliament
Conf. in Ministers
Conf. in Military
Conf. in City or Village Council
Conf. in Mayor
Conf. in Democracy
−.2 0 .2 .4 .6

Pre−election vs. Round 2

Pre−election vs. Round 3

Figure 1. Change in aggregate voter confidence over the 2004 Ukraine election.

are competently administered, and an astounding 43 percentage points more

likely to agree that there were adequate channels to contest violations. This
increased confidence also extended to a range of government institutions
(Figure 1). At the national level, higher levels of confidence were expressed
after the elections for the Parliament (+33 percentage points), the Cabinet
of Ministers (+34 percentage points), and the Military (+23 percentage
points).17 At the local level, there was a small positive increase in confidence
in local councils (+7 percentage points) but no change in attitudes toward
mayors. Respondents became 16 percentage points more likely to say that
they considered Ukraine a democracy.
Overall, the changes in voter confidence before and after the election tell
an optimistic story, as the peaceful resolution of the contentious election
increased voter confidence in both electoral and other political institutions.
However, as those knowledgeable about Ukrainian politics might expect,
these results do not hold across the population.

Impact of electoral revolution on voter confidence: partisan results

Figure 2 provides the same comparisons, with the data separated by Yush-
chenko-dominant oblasts and Yanukovych-dominant oblasts. The aggregate
17
The survey conducted in February 2005 did not include questions about confidence in the Supreme
Court.
340 E. I. WELLMAN ET AL.

Yanukovych Oblasts Yushchenko Oblasts

Vote Secret?
Results Accurate
Competent Elec. Admin
I feel safe voting
I am informed
Means to Challenge
Conf. in Parliament
Conf. in Ministers
Conf. in Military
Conf. in City or Village Council
Conf. in Mayor
Conf. in Democracy
−.5 0 .5 1 −.5 0 .5 1

Pre−election to R2
Pre−election to R3

Figure 2. Comparing voter confidence changes by partisan support over the 2004
Ukraine election.

increases in electoral and institutional confidence following the end of the

2004 election cycle were driven primarily by changes in attitudes within dis-
tricts that voted for Yushchenko, the ultimate winner of the election. The
results show that voters supporting the winning candidate had significant
and positive increases in confidence about electoral processes and govern-
ment institutions. For example, after the third round election, respondents
in Yushchenko oblasts were 21 percentage points more likely to agree that
their vote was secret compared to the pre-election results. Respondents in
Yushchenko oblasts were also 45 percentage points more confident that elec-
tion results were accurate, and 45 percentage points more likely to say elec-
tions were competently administered. Following the peaceful mass
demonstrations, the likelihood that respondents in Yushchenko-dominant
oblasts agreed that they could challenge election violations increased a
remarkable 62 percentage points.
Although the Yushchenko side of Figure 2 demonstrates large swings in
confidence in electoral institutions, results from the Yanukovych oblasts
were surprisingly flat. After the disputed 21 November second round in
which Yanukovych declared victory, we expected to see increases in voter
confidence among Yanukovych supporters. However, even among supporters
of the winning candidate, there was no significant change between pre-elec-
tion opinions and attitudes about the second round for questions of electoral
competency. This lukewarm response by Yanukovych oblasts after their
 JOURNAL OF ELECTIONS, PUBLIC OPINION AND PARTIES 341

victory is surprising given the large winning and losing effects exhibited by
the Yushchenko supporters.18 Moreover, their attitudes following the final
round of the election, in which their candidate lost, changed comparatively
little; respondents in Yanukovych oblasts were 15 percentage points more
likely to disagree with the idea that elections were competently administered,
a 60-point difference from Yushchenko districts. Most surprising, responses in
Yanukovych oblasts remained relatively stable across Rounds 2 and 3, in stark
contrast to the massive swings in Yushchenko oblasts. Overall, Yanukovych
oblasts experienced little change in confidence in electoral institutions
throughout the turbulent 2004 electoral cycle.
While differences in perceptions of election quality between voters who
supported winning versus losing candidates have been well documented,
prior studies have only suggested broader implications for confidence in gov-
ernment institutions and democratic engagement. Our analysis demonstrates
clear evidence for winner effects having a positive impact on attitudes about a
wide variety of institutions beyond the election, including the military and
national governing bodies (Figure 2). These increases may reflect positive per-
ceptions of the role that politicians and the military played in resolving the
Orange Revolution, increases which did not extend to the less involved
local institutions. Moreover, Yushchenko oblasts exhibited a dramatic increase
in the belief that Ukraine is a democracy (+36 percentage points). Yanukovych
districts exhibit smaller, but significant, increases in confidence in Parliament
(+8 percentage points) and the military (+13 percentage points), with a
decrease in confidence in the Cabinet of Ministers (−8 percentage points).
Finally, Yanukovych oblasts were less likely to think Ukraine was a democracy
following the election (−8 percentage points).
Overall, our results demonstrate increased confidence in elections and gov-
ernment institutions in oblasts that voted for the eventual winner, i.e. Yush-
chenko. However, we did not see a “loser effect” of similar intensity; nor did
we see a “winner effect” for the second-round outcome. The election had
little impact on the political attitudes of respondents in Yanukovych oblasts.
This relative consistency of political attitudes in Yanukovych oblasts is
especially remarkable considering the turbulence of the campaign and the
Orange Revolution.

Impact of electoral revolution on voter confidence: exposure to fraud

Finally, we examine whether personal exposure to manipulation (which we
also refer to as fraud) during the election reduces voter confidence.
Because relatively few individuals reported direct experience with electoral
18
As the February 2005 survey asked questions about attitudes following Round 2 and Round 3 at the
same time, opinions about the short-lived Yanukovych victory may have been tempered in retrospect.
342 E. I. WELLMAN ET AL.

Yanukovych Oblasts Yushchenko Oblasts

Vote Secret?
Results Accurate
Competent Elec. Admin
I feel safe voting
I am informed
Means to Challenge
Conf. in Parliament
Conf. in Ministers
Conf. in Military
Conf. in City or Village Council
Conf. in Mayor
Conf. in Democracy
−.4 −.2 0 .2 −.4 −.2 0 .2

Exposure to Fraud R2
Exposure to Fraud R3

Figure 3. Comparing voter confidence of voters exposed to fraud to co-partisans over

the 2004 Ukraine.

manipulation, we consider all respondents who were either directly exposed

to fraud or reported knowing someone that had been threatened or offered a
reward as encountering manipulation. About one out of six survey respon-
dents were thus exposed to fraud at some point during the 2004 election
(N = 211).
Regarding the lower-quality second round, voters exposed to manipulation
were 17 percentage points less likely to believe their vote was secret in Yanu-
kovych oblasts, and 13 percentage points less likely in Yushchenko oblasts
(Figure 3). Yet, on a number of other questions, voters with personal experi-
ence with manipulation were barely distinguishable from their neighbors
regarding attitudes about election administration, feeling informed, and,
perhaps most interestingly, believing that the results were accurate. The
decreases in voter confidence if the respondent had witnessed fraud were
slightly larger magnitude in Yanukovych districts; this makes sense, given
that most of the fraud was believed to have occurred in Yanukovych-domi-
nant oblasts (Clem and Craumer 2005; Wilson 2005). After the 26 December
rerun of the election, our analyses found no change in confidence levels
between those who had encountered fraud during the course of the election
and those who did not (Figure 3). Voters exposed to fraud did not have any
significant differences of opinion on electoral quality or political institutions
compared to other voters in their oblasts (Figure 3).
 JOURNAL OF ELECTIONS, PUBLIC OPINION AND PARTIES 343

Discussion
Existing literature demonstrates that contentious elections, characterized by
electoral violence, fraud, and other forms of electoral malpractice, can
reduce citizen confidence in institutions. Yet a number of elections that are
initially contentious resolve in a manner that is viewed as a democratic break-
through. What are the effects of a turbulent yet ultimately democratizing elec-
tion on citizen confidence?
To begin to shed light on this question, this article returned to the Orange
Revolution, one of the more famous examples of a contentious election that
resolved peacefully and with great promise. Using individual-level public
opinion data collected before and after the Orange Revolution, we evaluated
how the context of a contentious but democratizing election affected citizen
perceptions of political institutions. These surveys asked citizens a battery of
questions related to multiple dimensions of electoral integrity, as well as their
evaluations of numerous government institutions. For the survey conducted
after the elections, respondents were asked their assessments regarding
both the low-quality second round (21 November) and the high-quality
third round (26 December). Respondents were also asked whether they
were exposed to manipulation during the election. Thus, the data present a
unique opportunity to evaluate dynamically how large changes in perceived
electoral integrity – on both individual and contextual levels – impact percep-
tions of democratic institutions.
While our results demonstrate increased levels of electoral confidence
overall, they were concentrated within the voters who supported the eventual
winner Yushchenko. Yanukovych supporters, rather than exhibit a decline in
confidence, demonstrated little to no change in attitudes between the pre-
election period, the second round (which their candidate won), and the
third round (which he lost). While strong winner effects compliment existing
research, the relatively stable attitudes among Yanukovych voters were not
what we anticipated. We had expected Yanukoyvch supporters to be more
positive following the round that their candidate won (Round 2) and more
negative following the ultimate loss (Round 3). The relative stability of the
loser effects aligns with recent research that highlights heterogeneity in per-
ceptions of election quality among voters from different losing parties (Cantú
and García-Ponce 2015). It suggests that winner and loser effects may vary sig-
nificantly by a party or by a candidate. Our results do not speak to why the
difference exists. However, given the focus in the democratization literature
on electoral integrity and peaceful transitions of power, we can speculate
based on these results that even if the “losers” accept the results peacefully
in one election, supporters of other candidates may react differently in sub-
sequent elections with important implications for citizen support for democ-
racy more generally. Interventions that focus on increased inclusion, where
344 E. I. WELLMAN ET AL.

everyone has an opportunity to experience winning through alternation or

multiparty governance, may be just as critical to building trust in democracy
than in efforts to improve election quality.
Additionally, we were also surprised by the result that personal experience
with fraud had little effect on citizen attitudes toward the electoral process or
toward other political institutions. Our expectation was that personal
exposure to fraud would decrease voter confidence and trump any partisan
influences. Although there may be issues with citizen willingness to report
direct experience with fraud, the evidence in this study suggests that individ-
ual attitudes about the quality of elections and confidence in political insti-
tutions are conditioned strongly by election outcomes and partisan
affiliation rather than personal exposure to fraud. To put it starkly, even
voters who had direct experience with disenfranchisement may perceive an
electoral process and a government as legitimate if their favored candidate
won. Determining where, when, and why partisanship matters for voter con-
fidence in elections and political institutions is a critical question for countries
undergoing democratic consolidation, and an important area for future
research.
One final important area to explore further relates to the durability of the
partisan cleavages that were present during the Orange Revolution. In a sty-
lized version of a democratizing election, an improved electoral process
would ideally increase citizen perceptions of legitimacy across the board.
The differences shown in this article may have been warning signs of the
democratic breakdown in Ukraine. It is possible that all electoral revolutions
are tenuous, and democratization clearly requires many more institutional
changes in addition to rotations in power. However, if citizen support for
democracy is a key factor in democratic transition and consolation (Linz
and Stepan 1996), then attention to partisan divisions among citizens
during both contentious elections – even the ones that resolve successfully
– may reveal important challenges, some of which could be addressed as
part of any intervention aimed at consolidating democratic gains. The
Orange Revolution may be useful as a cautionary case for other fragile democ-
racies by highlighting the importance of factoring different partisan reactions
into periods of seemingly successful democratic transition.

Acknowledgements
We would like to thank Rakesh Sharma and Lauren Serpe of the Applied Research
Center at IFES for providing access to the data used in this paper. We also thank par-
ticipants at the August 2013 EIP “Emerging Challenges of Electoral Integrity” Workshop
and the July 2016 EIP/IDEA “Contentious Elections, Conflict, and Regime Transitions”
workshop for comments on an earlier versions of the paper, as well as the anonymous
reviewers for their insightful feedback. Any errors in analysis or interpretation are solely
the responsibility of the authors.
 JOURNAL OF ELECTIONS, PUBLIC OPINION AND PARTIES 345

Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors
Elizabeth Iams Wellman is a Ph.D. candidate in Political Science at Yale University. She
studies comparative democratization, migration and citizenship, and transnational pol-
itical participation.
Susan D. Hyde is Professor of Political Science and the Avice M. Saint Chair in Public
Policy at the University of California, Berkeley. She is an expert on international election
observation, election fraud, and democracy promotion.
Thad E. Hall is a senior political scientist at Fors Marsh Group. He is the author of
numerous books and articles on election administration and voting, as well as public
policy-making in the United States.

References
Alvarez, R. Michael, Thad E. Hall, and Morgan Llewellyn. 2007. “How Hard Can It Be: Do
Citizens Think It Is Difficult to Register to Vote?” Stanford Law & Policy Review 18: 383.
Alvarez, R. Michael, Thad E. Hall, and Morgan H. Llewellyn. 2008. “Are Americans
Confident Their Ballots Are Counted?” The Journal of Politics 70 (03): 754–766.
Anderson, Christopher J., Andre Blais, Shaun Bowler, Todd Donovan, and Ola Listhaug.
2005. Losers’ Consent: Elections and Democratic Legitimacy. New York: Oxford
University Press.
Anderson, Christopher J., and Christine A. Guillory. 1997. “Political Institutions and
Satisfaction with Democracy: A Cross-national Analysis of Consensus and
Majoritarian Systems.” The American Political Science Review 91 (1): 66–81.
Anderson, Christopher J., and Andrew J. LoTempio. 2002. “Winning, Losing and Political
Trust in America.” British Journal of Political Science 32 (02): 335–351.
Anderson, Christopher J., and Yuliya V. Tverdova. 2001. “Winners, Losers, and Attitudes
about Government in Contemporary Democracies.” International Political Science
Review 22 (4): 321–338.
Angrist, Joshua D., and Jörn-Steffen Pischke. 2008. Mostly Harmless Econometrics: An
Empiricist’s Companion. 1st ed. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Arriola, Leonardo, and Chelsea Johnson. 2011. “Election Violence in Democratizing
States.”Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the American Political Science
Association, Seattle, WA.
Banducci, Susan A., and Jeffrey A. Karp. 2003. “How Elections Change the Way Citizens
View the Political System: Campaigns, Media Effects and Electoral Outcomes in
Comparative Perspective.” British Journal of Political Science 33 (03): 443–467.
Beaulieu, Emily. 2014a. Electoral Protest and Democracy in the Developing World.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Beaulieu, Emily. 2014b. “From Voter ID to Party ID: How Political Parties Affect
Perceptions of Election Fraud in the U.S.” Electoral Studies 35 (September): 24–32.
doi:10.1016/j.electstud.2014.03.003.
Beissinger, Mark R. 2011. “Mechanisms of Maidan: The Structure of Contingency in
the Making of the Orange Revolution.” Mobilization: An International Quarterly
16 (1): 25–43.
346 E. I. WELLMAN ET AL.

Beissinger, Mark R. 2013. “The Semblance of Democratic Revolution: Coalitions in

Ukraine’s Orange Revolution.” American Political Science Review 107 (03): 574–592.
Birch, Sarah. 2008. “Electoral Institutions and Popular Confidence in Electoral Processes:
A Cross-national Analysis.” Electoral Studies 27 (2): 305–320.
Birch, Sarah. 2010. “Perceptions of Electoral Fairness and Voter Turnout.” Comparative
Political Studies 43 (12): 1601–1622.
Birch, Sarah. 2011. Electoral Malpractice. New York: Oxford University Press.
Blais, André, and François Gélineau. 2007. “Winning, Losing and Satisfaction with
Democracy.” Political Studies 55 (2): 425–441.
Bratton, Michael. 2008. “Vote Buying and Violence in Nigerian Election Campaigns.”
Electoral Studies 27 (4): 621–632.
Bratton, Michael, and Nicholas van de Walle. 1997. Democratic Experiments in Africa:
Regime Transitions in Comparative Perspective. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.
Bunce, Valerie J., and Sharon L. Wolchik. 2006. “Favorable Conditions and Electoral
Revolutions.” Journal of Democracy 17 (4): 5–18.
Bunce, Valerie J., and Sharon L. Wolchik. 2011. Defeating Authoritarian Leaders in
Postcommunist Countries. 1st ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Cameron, A. Colin, and Douglas L. Miller. 2015. “A Practitioner’s Guide to Cluster-Robust
Inference.” Journal of Human Resources 50 (2): 317–372. doi:10.3368/jhr.50.2.317.
Cantú, Francisco, and Omar García-Ponce. 2015. “Partisan Losers’ Effects: Perceptions of
Electoral Integrity in Mexico.” Electoral Studies 39 (September): 1–14. doi:10.1016/j.
electstud.2015.03.004.
Carreras, Miguel, and Yasemin İrepoğlu. 2013. “Trust in Elections, Vote Buying, and
Turnout in Latin America.” Electoral Studies, Special Symposium: The New
Research Agenda on Electoral Integrity, 32 (4): 609–619.
Cho, Wonbin, and Michael Bratton. 2006. “Electoral Institutions, Partisan Status, and
Political Support in Lesotho.” Electoral Studies 25 (4): 731–750.
Clem, Ralph, and Peter Craumer. 2005. “Shades of Orange: The Electoral Geography of
Ukraine’s 2004 Presidential Elections.” Eurasian Geography and Economics 46 (5):
364–385.
Dahl, Robert Alan. 1971. Polyarchy: Participation and Opposition. New Haven, CT: Yale
University Press.
Esaiasson, Peter. 2011. “Electoral Losers Revisited – How Citizens React to Defeat at the
Ballot Box.” Electoral Studies 30 (1): 102–113.
Gandhi, Jennifer, and Ellen Lust-Okar. 2009. “Elections under Authoritarianism.” Annual
Review of Political Science 12 (1): 403–422.
Gutiérrez-Romero, Roxana. 2014. “An Inquiry into the Use of Illegal Electoral Practices
and Effects of Political Violence and Vote-Buying.” Journal of Conflict Resolution 58
(8): 1500–1527. doi:10.1177/0022002714547902.
Hafner-Burton, Emilie M., Susan D. Hyde, and Ryan S. Jablonski. 2014. “When Do
Governments Resort to Election Violence?” British Journal of Political Science 44 (1):
149–179. doi:10.1017/S0007123412000671.
Hyde, Susan D., and Nikolay Marinov. 2012. “Which Elections Can Be Lost?” Political
Analysis 20 (2): 119–210.
Hyde, Susan D., and Nikolay Marinov. 2014. “Information and Self-enforcing
Democracy: The Role of International Election Observation.” International
Organization 68 (02): 329–359. doi:10.1017/S0020818313000465.
Jou, Willy. 2009. “Political Support from Election Losers in Asian Democracies.” Taiwan
Journal of Democracy 5 (2): 145–175.
 JOURNAL OF ELECTIONS, PUBLIC OPINION AND PARTIES 347

Karp, Jeffrey A., and Caitlin Milazzo. 2015. “Democratic Scepticism and Political
Participation in Europe.” Journal of Elections, Public Opinion and Parties 25 (1): 97–
110. doi:10.1080/17457289.2014.996157.
Kuhn, Patrick. 2012. “Bullets, Cash, and Fraud: On Perpetrators and Targets of Electoral
Violence in the 2007 Nigerian Election.” Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the
American Political Science Association, New Orleans, LA.
Kuntz, Philipp, and Mark R. Thompson. 2009. “More Than Just the Final Straw: Stolen
Elections as Revolutionary Triggers.” Comparative Politics 41 (3): 253–272.
Linz, Juan J., and Alfred Stepan. 1996. Problems of Democratic Transition and
Consolidation: Southern Europe, South America, and Post-communist Europe.
Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press.
Little, Andrew T. 2012. “Elections, Fraud, and Election Monitoring in the Shadow of
Revolution.” Quarterly Journal of Political Science 7 (3): 249–283. doi:10.1561/100.
00011078.
Maldonado, A., and M. A. Seligson. 2014. “Electoral Trust in Latin America.” In Advancing
Electoral Integrity, edited by P. Norris, R. W. Frank, and F. M. i Coma, 229–245. Oxford:
Oxford University Press.
McAllister, Ian, and Stephen White. 2011. “Public Perceptions of Electoral Fairness in
Russia.” Europe-Asia Studies 63 (4): 663–683.
McAllister, Ian, and Stephen White. 2015. “Electoral Integrity and Support for
Democracy in Belarus, Russia, and Ukraine.” Journal of Elections, Public Opinion
and Parties 25 (1): 78–96. doi:10.1080/17457289.2014.911744.
McFaul, Michael. 2007. “Ukraine Imports Democracy: External Influences on the Orange
Revolution.” International Security 32 (2): 45–83.
Meirowitz, Adam, and Joshua A. Tucker. 2013. “People Power or a One-Shot Deal? A
Dynamic Model of Protest.” American Journal of Political Science 57 (2): 478–490.
Moehler, Devra C., and Staffan I. Lindberg. 2009. “Narrowing the Legitimacy Gap:
Turnovers as a Cause of Democratic Consolidation.” The Journal of Politics 71 (04):
1448–1466.
Norris, Pippa. 2013. “The New Research Agenda Studying Electoral Integrity.” Electoral
Studies 32 (4): 563–575.
Norris, Pippa. 2014. Why Electoral Integrity Matters. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.
Norris, Pippa, Richard W. Frank, and Ferran Martínez i Coma. 2015. Contentious Elections:
From Ballots to Barricades. New York: Routledge.
Przeworski, Adam. 1991. Democracy and the Market: Political and Economic Reforms in
Eastern Europe and Latin America. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Przeworski, Adam. 2005. “Democracy as an Equilibrium.” Public Choice 123 (3–4): 253–
273.
Rose, Richard, and William Mishler. 2009. “How Do Electors Respond to an ‘Unfair’
Election? The Experience of Russians.” Post-Soviet Affairs 25 (2): 118–136.
Shah, Seema, and Nicholas N. Kerr. 2017. “Does Victimhood Matter? Violence and
Perceptions of Election Quality in Nigeria.” Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of
the Midwest Political Science Association, Chicago, IL.
Simpser, Alberto. 2012. “Does Electoral Manipulation Discourage Voter Turnout?
Evidence from Mexico.” The Journal of Politics 74 (03): 782–795.
Simpser, Alberto. 2013. Why Governments and Parties Manipulate Elections: Theory,
Practice, and Implications. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Singh, Shane P. 2013. “Not All Election Winners Are Equal: Satisfaction with Democracy
and the Nature of the Vote.” European Journal of Political Research 53 (2): 308–327.
348 E. I. WELLMAN ET AL.

Singh, Shane P., Ekrem Karakoç, and André Blais. 2012. “Differentiating Winners: How
Elections Affect Satisfaction with Democracy.” Electoral Studies 31 (1): 201–211.
Svensson, Palle, and Jorgen Elklit. 1997. “What Makes Elections Free and Fair?” Journal
of Democracy 8 (3): 32–46.
TNS Ukraine. 2004. National Survey in Ukraine (2004) Technical Report. International
Foundation of Election Systems (IFES).
TNS Ukraine. 2005. National Survey in Ukraine (2005) Technical Report. International
Foundation of Election Systems (IFES).
Tucker, Joshua. 2007. “Enough! Electoral Fraud, Collective Action Problems, and Post-
communist Colored Revolutions.” Perspectives on Politics 5 (03): 535–551.
“Ukraine. Presidential Election. 2004 | Electoral Geography 2.0.” 2014. Accessed
November 5. http://www.electoralgeography.com/new/en/countries/u/ukraine/
ukraine-presidential-election-2004.html.
Wilson, Andrew. 2005. Ukraine’s Orange Revolution. New Haven, CT: Yale University
Press.