Electoral manipulation and pos-electoral protests in Latin America

A total of 40 post-election protests took place in Latin America between 1980-2020. The conventional explanation assumes that electoral manipulation increases the likelihood of post-election protests. However, the research to date has not dealt much with how the elections were manipulated and whether there was manipulation or whether the public is convinced that the polls were rigged. This study aims to fill this gap. An analysis of 222 elections in Latin America between 1980-2020 shows that the relationship between electoral manipulation and post-election protests is far more complex than conventional explanations suggest. First, manipulation in counting votes appears to increase the chance of a post-election protest. However, pre-election manipulation (i.e. uneven playing field) does not affect post-election demonstrations. Contrary to the previous studies, intimidation and vote-buying also have no effect. Surprisingly the level of political polarization and government disinformation also did not affect the probability of post-electoral protests. The results clearly show that the slow degradation of the quality of elections is a severe problem for the future of democracy in Latin America because the public is more apathetic than to the "traditional" manipulation of electoral results. The positive news, however, is that the public is mainly protesting against elections that were indeed rigged. Protests against perceived manipulation, such as those in Brazil in 2022, are relatively rare.