Vote-buying and political behavior: estimating and explaining vote-buying's effect on turnout in Kenya

Vote-buying has and continues to be pervasive in many electoral regimes. Yet the relationship between vote-buying and citizen behavior, particularly in the context of the secret ballot, remains largely unknown. In this paper the author studies vote-buying’s effect on voter turnout in Kenya, using a nationally representative survey that includes questions about the country's 2002 presidential and parliamentary elections. However, estimating the causal effect of vote-buying on voter turnout is complicated by the strategic nature of vote-buying, and so this study also examines the strategic logic of vote-buying in Kenya.

This paper provides the following findings:

• Vote-buying has no effect on the probability that a highly educated person will vote, even though vote-buyers target such individuals at rates similar to those who are less educated. Those with no formal education, on the other hand, appear to be most affected by vote-buying
  
• While education might be predictive of an individual's decision to vote, so too might be their economic condition. As suggested, poorer voters might be more susceptible to vote-buying because even small transfers are valuable to them
  
• In amplifying both the perceived probability of being discovered of non-compliance and the perceived costs of non-compliance, vote-buying would then influence the decision-making calculus of potential voters, making them more likely to turnout.

The paper also provides implications and conclusions such as:

• Pre-election material benefits, in the form of vote-buying, are central to understanding why people vote in Kenya and Kenya's 2002 presidential and parliamentary elections provide robust support for the notion that vote-buying influences an individual's decision to vote
  
• Political parties in Kenya were active in monitoring voter behavior, and also statistical evidence suggests that exposure to vote-buying greatly increases the probability that an individual feels that parties can exert pressure on their vote choice and that parties are involved in violence
  
• Exposure to vote-buying increases an individual's perception of party monitoring and punishment capacity, a perception likely to affect decision-making about whether to vote and is positively associated with individual perception of politician credibility.