Invalid Voting in Comparative Perspective of Central and Eastern European Countries

Invalid votes have recently gained much of an interest of political scientists. Although they represent fringe and specific neglected category, a high share of invalid votes might indicate electoral malpractice, electoral fraud or political distrusts of citizens who deliberately decide to cast an invalid vote. Such consequences are of crucial importance in recently democratized countries. The paper presents a quantitative comparative analysis of the determinants of invalid voting in the countries of post-Communist Central and Eastern Europe. The analysis is based on data file containing all European post-Communist countries in which competitive elections have taken place from the beginning of the 1990’s until 2014. The method used is a regression model for cross-sectional time-series data. Institutional variables are tested in the model (electoral system, ballot structure, concurrence of elections, type of regime, etc.), as well as social-economic variables (among others GDP, education and literacy rates) and political variables (the character and robustness of the political competition, participation and the quality of democracy).In order to interpret the data, it is very important to examine the dynamics of a number of variables over time, which relates to the process of democratization and economic and societal transformations in all the examined countries. Preliminary results point to that large share of invalid votes occurs in mixed electoral systems and when multiple elections are held concurrently.