Voting Technology, Political Responsiveness, and Infant Health: Evidence From Brazil

Abstract

THE EV TECHNOLOGY is a small screen and a set of keys closely resembling a touch-tone phone with the addition of three colored buttons, as Figure 1 illustrates.Panel B depicts the initial screen a voter faces.It provides an instruction to vote for a state legislator (deputado estadual).Once the voter types the number of his choice of candidate, her information (photo, name, and party) appears on the screen, as depicted on Panel C. A voter can then "confirm" his vote by pressing the green button or "correct" his vote using the orange button.The former option casts a vote and the latter restarts the process and returns to the initial screen.There are two ways a residual vote can be cast with EV.One is by pressing the "blank" (white) button.Another one is by typing a number that does not correspond to a candidate.Doing so will lead to the screen depicted on Figure A1.Pressing the "confirm" button at this point will lead to a residual vote.There are at least three features of the electronic technology that can reduce residual votes, especially from less educated voters.First, there is the introduction of visual aids (candidate photographs).Second, the machine provides instant feedback to the voter.When he types a wrong number, the machine informs him (Figure A1).Note that even a completely illiterate voter that could not read the "wrong number" message on the screen would notice that a picture has not appeared on the screen.Obviously, a piece of paper cannot provide this type of feedback.Third, the technology guides the user through the many votes (state legislator, federal legislator, senator, governor, president) he has to cast.It also informs the voter when all votes are cast, making it less likely that he forgets to vote for one office.Moreover, with paper ballots, a voter may misvote by, for example, writing the number of a state legislator in the federal legislator box.The electronic device also makes salient how many digits are needed for a vote so that even a completely illiterate voter can take this as a cue for which vote he hast to cast.For example, Figure 1 depicts the machine requesting the user for a 5-digit number, which has to be the case of a state legislator (as federal legislators have 4-digit and other offices use 2-digit numbers).In principle, another possible explanation for the reduction in residual votes is due to voting technology affecting electoral fraud at the vote-counting stage.However, this is unlikely to be the case.There is virtually no evidence of electoral fraud related to the electronic system, which is perceived as honest by