Unfair local elections?
In the last local elections in Denmark, unsuccessful candidates were significantly more concerned about electoral fairness than election winners. This is shown by a study from Aarhus BSS, which has now been published in an international scientific journal.
What does a football match refereed by Italian star referee Pierluigi Collina have in common with local elections in Denmark?
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That the results must be regarded as exceptionally fair.
Danish elections are free and fair, and we have one of the most robust democracies in the world, say three researchers from the Department of Political Science at Aarhus BSS, Aarhus University in a new research article.
Still, they conclude that the losers of the local elections in 2021 were concerned about the fairness of the elections. And significantly more so than the winners.
The three researchers – Roman Senninger, Martin Bækgaard and Henrik Seeberg – conducted a survey among candidates in all 98 Danish municipalities a few weeks after the local elections. Their findings have now been published in the Journal of Politics.
In the article, the reaction of losers is described as, on the one hand paradoxical and on the other hand as a normal human reaction to disappointment.
“The losers’ reaction is probably due to a general human inclination, which we also see in sports. If you lose a close football match, you may be inclined to complain about the referee. The point is that it just doesn’t make sense when it comes to elections in Denmark. It’s like complaining about Pierluigi Collina, the bald legendary football referee from Italy, who refereed many of the grand finals around the turn of the millennium. He’s the last person we would expect to make crucial mistakes,” says Roman Senninger, associate professor at the Department of Political Science.
And that’s key when it comes to democratic elections, which is what the municipal candidates have been asked to consider.
It’s okay to be disappointed, but their complaints are probably quite unfounded, and perhaps what they really need is a hug
Roman Senninger, associate professor at the Department of Political Science, Aarhus BSS
Blaming the media and election administration
The losers were significantly more inclined than the winners to hold views such as:
- The municipal administration is not neutral and impartial at the time of the local elections.
- The elections were conducted in an unfair and biased manner.
- The vote does not reflect voters’ wishes.
- The media favoured some candidates and parties over others in their coverage of the elections.
The candidates rated the elections on a five-point scale from 1 (completely agree) to 5 (completely disagree), and the losers’ scores were consistently almost half a point lower than the winners.
The low scores seem solely ascribable to the effect of losing, according to the researchers. They use a research design that makes it possible to rule out a lot of other causes, explains Roman Senninger.
“We’ve focused on candidates who won or lost by a very small margin and thus have stood an even chance of being voted in. The differences in the responses from losers and winners are also seen between same-party candidates. So the different scores can only really be ascribed to the difference between victory and defeat.”
No prospect of burning town halls
The new research is the first of its kind internationally. Very little research has been done into the effect on politicians of losing an election.
On the other hand, Roman Senninger points out, in recent years with Trump in the United States and Bolsonaro in Brazil, we have seen disturbing examples of losers who have blamed the media and election administration for their defeats, after which their voters have taken to the barricades.
And we do have a great deal of knowledge about the effect on voters. Previous research has shown that voters are also negatively affected by election defeats, and that politicians’ postelection communication can affect our confidence in election results.
“I see no reason to fear burning town halls or riots in Denmark, but greater polarisation and less sympathy for political opponents are also seen in this country. At the same time, social media have made it easier for losing candidates to influence us voters and our support for democracy,” says Roman Senninger.
He therefore believes that the findings call for both attention and action.
“Perhaps the political parties should make more of an effort to look after their losing candidates. These are people who have put a huge amount of work into their election campaigns and into making a difference, and often they find themselves without any influence, neither on the town council nor in the party."
He and his colleagues also urge us all to be critical if we come across losing candidates “complaining about the referee”.
“It’s okay to be disappointed, but their complaints are probably quite unfounded, and perhaps what they really need is a hug,” says Roman Senninger, associate professor of political science at Aarhus BSS, Aarhus University.
Facts
We strive to comply with Universities Denmark’s principles for good research communication. For this reason, we provide the following information as a supplement to this article:
| Type of study | Survey combined with a so-called regression discontinuity design, which makes it possible to compare candidates who narrowly won or lost, and thus arrive at stronger causal conclusions. |
| External collaborators | None |
| External funding | Carlsberg Foundation and Independent Research Fund Denmark |
| Conflict of interest | None |
| Other | N/A |
| Link to the scientific article | Unsuccessful Candidates Are More Concerned About Electoral Fairness than Election Winners |
| Contact informatrion | Roman Senninger |