essay on local election 2022

Essay on Election for Students and Children

500+ words essay on election.

Election is the process through which people can express their political opinion. They express this opinion by public voting to choose a political leader . Furthermore, this political leader would have authority and responsibility. Most noteworthy, Election is a formal group decision making the process. Also, the selected political leader would hold public office. The election is certainly a vital pillar of democracy. This is because; Election ensures that the government is of the people, by the people, and for the people.

Characteristics of Election

First of all, suffrage is an important part of Election . Most noteworthy, suffrage refers to the right to vote in Elections. The question of who may vote is certainly an important issue. The electorate probably never includes the entire population. Almost all countries prohibit individuals under the age of majority from voting. For example, in India, the age of majority is attainable at the age of 18 years.

The nomination of a candidate is also an important characteristic of Election. This means to officially suggest someone for Election. Nomination refers to the process of selecting a candidate for election to a public office. Furthermore, endorsements or testimonials are public statements to support a candidate’s nomination.

Another essential characteristic of Election is electoral systems. Electoral systems refer to detailed constitutional arrangements and voting systems. Furthermore, detailed constitutional arrangements and voting systems convert the vote into a political decision.

The first step is the tally of votes. For this purpose, there is the use of various vote counting systems and ballot. Then comes the determination of the result on the basis of the tally. Also, the categorization of most systems is as either proportional or majoritarian.

Scheduling refers to arranging and controlling of Elections. Elected officials are accountable to the people. Therefore, they must return to the voters at regular intervals of time. Elected officials must do that so as to seek a mandate to continue in office. Above all, most countries arrange elections at fixed regular intervals.

An election campaign is also an integral part of Election. Election campaign refers to an organized effort to positively influence the decision making of a particular group. Consequently, politicians compete with each other by trying to woo more and more individuals.

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Importance of Election

First of all, the Election is a peaceful and efficient way of choosing political leaders. Furthermore, citizens of a Nation choose a leader by casting their votes. In this way, the citizens are able to choose an individual whose views appeal to them most. Hence, people are able to exercise their will in political leadership.

An election is an excellent opportunity for people to express their resentment. Most noteworthy, if people are unhappy with a particular leadership, then they can remove it from power. People can certainly replace an undesirous leadership with a better alternative through Election.

The election is a handsome opportunity for political participation. Furthermore, it is a way by which new issues can be raised in public. In most democratic countries, common citizens are allowed to contest elections independently.

Consequently, a citizen could introduce reforms which are not any political party’s agenda. Also, in most democratic countries, a citizen could form a new political party to contest Election.

Election helps keep the power of political leaders in check. The ruling parties cannot afford to do any wrongdoing to the public due to the risk of losing Election. Hence, Election serves as an efficient power check and control for those in the ruling power.

To sum it up, Election is the symbol of political freedom. Most noteworthy, it is the tool which puts authority in the hands of common people. Democracy certainly would be non-functional without it. People must realize the value of Elections and come out in large numbers to vote.

Q1 What are electoral systems?

A1  Electoral systems are detailed constitutional arrangements and voting systems. These detailed constitutional arrangements and voting systems convert the vote into a political decision.

Q2 How Election helps keep the power of the political leaders in check?

A2 Elections certainly help keep the power of the political leaders in check. This is because political leaders cannot afford to do any wrongdoing to the public due to the risk of losing Election

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A country divided: The story of the local elections 2022 in maps and charts

Sky News analysis of the local election results shows that although the Conservatives have lost more than 450 seats, this does not translate into total triumph for Labour.

By Daniel Dunford, senior data journalist, and Will Jennings, Sky News elections analyst

Saturday 7 May 2022 07:45, UK

The totemic London councils of Wandsworth, Westminster and Barnet, as well as the bellwether council of Southampton, all fell from the Conservatives to Labour.

They were among almost 40 councils to change hands across England, Scotland and Wales, 13 of which were from the Conservatives.

But Labour struggled to truly seize advantage of the Tory decline. In England they gained fewer seats than the Greens and fewer councils than the Lib Dems, as the fortunes of different parties varied in different parts of the country.

Looking at the swing between Labour and the Conservatives at council-seat level, a picture begins to become clear.

In the south, there was an unmistakeable slide towards Labour compared to the 2018 vote share. The biggest red arrows are where the most Tory voters switched to Labour. In the Midlands (Birmingham is in the top left of this image) it was less clear, with both Labour and the Conservatives making gains in different areas.

In the north, the opposite was true. The 2018 elections were before Labour lost the 'Red Wall'. Although they have fared less badly than in the 2019 general election, it's still not good news for Sir Kier Starmer's party.

Conservative losses in the south of England were largely to the Greens and Lib Dems.

The Lib Dems gained control of Gosport, Woking and Somerset councils in the south, as well as Hull and Westmorland & Furness, as part of a promising night overall.

Labour lost vote share in every other part of the UK apart from London.

Check the result where you live

Labour will be buoyed by results in specific councils that point towards potential gains in a general election.

Cumberland is a new council, formed from Allerdale, Carlisle and Copeland, so it's not right to call it a Labour gain. But the Conservatives were the biggest party in two of those three former councils and crucially have all three MPs in the area.

Looking towards the Midlands, in Wolverhampton there was no change in the number of council seats under Labour control, but their vote share increased compared to the general election and last year's locals.

They would have taken both Wolverhampton constituencies from the Conservatives if this was a general election.

The Labour performance in neighbouring Sandwell indicates that they would also have gained one of two seats in West Bromwich.

Based on the overall results, however, they would still be some way from challenging for an outright Commons win.

Making history

The election will be remembered best for those historic wins in London.

Wandsworth had been in Tory hands since 1978, and there had never been a Labour council in either Barnet or Westminster , since their creation 58 years ago.

Labour's dominance in London is particularly concerning for the Conservatives given that 2018, when these seats were last up, was their worst performance in the capital since 1964 when the boroughs were first established.

This chart shows how far ahead the Conservatives were in Westminster throughout recent decades - you can select a council you're interested in from the dropdown list.

Overall, almost 400 Tory councillors lost their seats in England, offset by just 54 gains, fewer than any of the other significant parties.

It wasn't much better in Scotland. Labour came second behind the SNP and gained control of West Dunbartonshire council.

And in Wales, the Conservatives failed to take a single seat they didn't control in 2018, losing 67.

Brexit vote trends still relevant

Since the EU referendum in 2016 we've become used to dramatic shifts in voting patterns. It seems from today's results that some of those trends might be baked into the baseline by now.

Sky News analysis of hundreds of English ward results shows that the Tories are now losing votes even in the strongest Leave-voting areas, although they are performing better there than in places that voted Remain.

The Lib Dems are making gains at Conservative expense in seats, especially in the south, where more people went to university.

Related Topics

• Conservatives
• Data and Forensics
• Green Party
• Liberal Democrats
• Local Elections 2022

Why the 2022 Philippines election is so significant

There are 10 candidates vying to replace Rodrigo Duterte as president, but only two really matter.

The Philippines goes to the polls on May 9 to choose a new president, in what analysts say will be the most significant election in the Southeast Asian nation’s recent history.

Outgoing President Rodrigo Duterte leaves office with a reputation for brutality – his signature “drug war”  has left thousands dead and is being investigated by the International Criminal Court (ICC) – economic incompetence, and cracking down on the media and his critics.

Keep reading

‘our generation’s fight’: robredo’s campaign to stop marcos jr, leila de lima release urged after witnesses retract testimony, us, philippines kick off their largest-ever military drills, duterte ally wrests control of tv signals used by abs-cbn.

Duterte has also been criticised for his handling of the coronavirus pandemic, which has killed at least 60,439 people in the archipelago.

There are 10 people battling to replace him, but only two stand a chance of winning.

The first is frontrunner Ferdinand Marcos Jr, popularly known as “Bongbong” and the namesake of his father, who ruled the Philippines as a dictator until he was forced from office and into exile in a popular uprising in 1986.

The second is Leni Robredo, the current vice president and head of the opposition, who has promised more accountable and transparent government and to reinvigorate the country’s democracy.

“This election is really a good versus evil campaign,” University of the Philippines Diliman political scientist Aries Arugay told Al Jazeera. “It’s quite clear. Duterte represents dynasty, autocracy and impunity. Robredo stands for the opposite of that: integrity, accountability and democracy.”

What happens on election day?

Some 67.5 million Filipinos aged 18 and over are eligible to cast their vote, along with about 1.7 million from the vast Filipino diaspora who have registered overseas.

Polling stations will open at 6am (22:00 GMT) and close at 7pm (11:00 GMT). The hours have been extended because of the coronavirus pandemic and the need to avoid queues and crowds.

Once the polls close, counting gets under way immediately, and the candidate with the most votes wins. There is no second round so the name of the new president could be known within a few hours. The inauguration takes place in June.

As well as the presidential race, Filipinos are choosing a new vice president – the position is elected separately to the president – members of congress, governors and thousands of local politicians including mayors and councillors.

Politics can be a dangerous business in the Philippines and there is the risk of violence during both campaigning and the election itself.

In one of the most horrific incidents, dozens of people were killed and buried by the roadside in 2009 by a rival political clan in what became known as the Maguindanao massacre .

Who is in the running for president?

Opinion polls suggest Marcos Jr remains in the lead although Robredo appears to be closing the gap.

The 64-year-old dictator’s son attended the private Worth School in England and studied at Oxford University – Marcos Jr’s official biography says he “graduated” but the university says he emerged with a “special diploma” in social studies.

He entered politics in the family stronghold of Ilocos Norte in 1980, and was governor of the province when his father was forced out of power and democracy restored.

In 1992, he was elected to congress – again for Ilocos Norte. Three years later, he was found guilty of tax evasion, a conviction that has dogged him ever since but does not seem to have hindered his political career.

Marcos Jr was elected a senator in 2010, and ran unsuccessfully for the vice presidency six years later when he was pipped to the post by a resurgent Robredo.

On the campaign trail, Marcos Jr has talked of “unity” but has provided little detail on his policies and has avoided media interviews and debates.

His running mate is Sara Duterte-Carpio , Duterte’s daughter, who took over as mayor of Davao City from her father and is leading the field for vice president.

Robredo is the current vice president and a human rights lawyer who got into politics in 2013 after her husband – a government minister – was killed in a plane crash.

She threw her hat into the ring at a relatively late stage, and has relied on a network of pink-clad volunteers to win over voters across the archipelago.

Thousands have turned out for her rallies, some of then standing for hours in their hot sun waiting to hear the presidential hopeful speak. Robredo, whose running mate is Senator Francis “Kiko” Pangilinan, is running on a platform of good governance, democracy and an end to corruption.

Other candidates include champion boxer Manny Pacquiao , Manila mayor Francisco “Isko Moreno” Domagoso, and a former police chief Panfilo Lacson.

Why would a Marcos victory be controversial?

Ferdinand Marcos became president of the Philippines in 1965, winning over Filipinos with his charisma and rhetoric, and taking control of a country that appeared at the time to be one of Southeast Asia’s emerging powerhouses.

Backed by the United States, Marcos won a second term in office in 1969, but three years later he declared martial law claiming the move was necessary to “save” the nation from communists.

For the next 14 years, he ruled the country as a dictator.

More than 3,200 people were killed – their bodies often dumped by the road side as a warning to others – and even more tortured or arbitrarily jailed, according to the US academic and historian, Alfred McCoy.

Marcos’s biggest rival, Benigno Aquino, was assassinated as he got off a plane at Manila airport.

The killing shocked Filipinos at a time when they were increasingly angry at the corruption and extravagance of the Marcos regime. Even as many lived in poverty, the Marcos family bought properties in New York and California, paintings by artists including impressionist master Monet, luxury jewellery and designer clothes.

Transparency International estimated in 2004 that the couple embezzled as much as $10bn during their years in power, and Imelda , Marcos’s wife, has become a byword for excess.

But since the former dictator’s death in Hawaii in 1989, the Marcos family have sought to rehabilitate themselves, trying to portray the dictatorship as some kind of golden age.

In 2016, Duterte allowed Ferdinand Marcos to be buried in Manila’s heroes cemetery, complete with a 21-gun salute .

Now the Duterte family is allied with the Marcos one, and their bid also has the support of other politically influential dynasties in a country where blood ties are more important than any political party.

“The meteoric resurgence of the Marcoses is itself a stinging judgement on the profound failures of the country’s democratic institutions,” academic Richard Javad Heydarian wrote in a column for Al Jazeera in December. “Decades of judicial impunity, historical whitewashing, corruption-infested politics and exclusionary economic growth has driven a growing number of Filipinos into the Marcoses’ embrace.”

Many worry the election of Marcos Jr, particularly if Duterte becomes vice president as widely expected, could herald a new era of repression.

“The two are the offspring of two strongman rulers,” Arugay said. “Can we expect restraint and inclusive government? You don’t need to be a political scientist to answer that question.”

Earlier this week, some 1,200 members of the clergy of the Catholic Church endorsed Robredo and Pangilinan describing them as “good shepherds”. At least 86 percent of Filipinos are Catholic.

“We cannot simply shrug, and let the fate of our country be dictated by false and misleading claims that aim to change our history,” they said.

Will the result be accepted?

When Marcos Jr lost the vice presidential race by 263,000 votes in 2016, he challenged the result in court.

With the stakes much higher this time around, some analysts worry he could do so again if Robredo manages to pull off a victory.

The role of social media

Filipinos are avid users of social media and the platforms have played a key – and divisive – role in the election, intensifying the more toxic elements of political campaigning.

Marcos Jr and his team have been accused of using – and abusing – online platforms.

In January, Twitter suspended more than 300 accounts promoting his campaign, which it said breached rules on spam and manipulation.

Joshua Kurtantzick of the Council on Foreign Relations says Marcos Jr has also benefited from “the legacy of Duterte, who fostered the spread of disinformation and made it easier for another strongman to win”.

Senatorial race

While all eyes are on the presidential race, it is worth keeping an eye on the senate, too.

Leila de Lima, who has spent the past five years imprisoned in the national police headquarters in Manila after questioning Duterte’s drug war, is campaigning for office again.

The opposition senator is hopeful she may soon be released after two key witnesses withdrew their testimony .

De Lima was the target of vicious, misogynistic attacks by Duterte and his supporters before she was charged in 2017 with taking money from drug lords while she was justice secretary in the government of the late Benigno Aquino III .

De Lima has denied the charges and Human Rights Watch has said the case is politically motivated.

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As the 2022 campaign draws to a close, here’s how federal, state and local candidates have used Twitter

As Election Day draws closer, candidates for office at the federal, state and local level are competing for the support of the voting public both online and off. A new Pew Research Center analysis of more than 8,000 candidate Twitter accounts nationwide finds that the online campaign is in full swing. Since the start of the year, candidates for office at all levels of government have shared almost 3.4 million tweets, including nearly 14,000 tweets per day in October.

Here are some of the key themes in how candidates have used Twitter during their 2022 campaigns: 

Pew Research Center conducted this analysis to understand the themes that candidates for all levels of U.S. political office have emphasized on Twitter as the 2022 campaign comes to an end. To carry out this analysis, researchers obtained a list of candidates running for office at the federal, state and local level in 2022 and who have a public-facing Twitter account. Researchers then collected all of the tweets shared by those accounts between Jan. 1 and Oct. 24, 2022. The Center then classified each of the nearly 3.4 million tweets based on the topic areas that were mentioned in the tweet, as well as whether the tweets mentioned the candidates’ opponents or national political party figures. For details, read the full methodology .

One-in-five candidate tweets in 2022 have mentioned race, abortion, education or the economy. In public opinion polls, the economy has consistently ranked among the most important issues for registered voters ahead of Election Day. But on Twitter, discussions by candidates around the country have focused on a number of issues – with race and ethnicity, abortion and education ranking alongside the economy among the key areas of focus.

Tweets mentioning these issues have accounted for roughly 20% of all political candidates’ posts in 2022 and have the highest average weekly ranking during the study period. More than three-quarters of the candidates included in this analysis have tweeted at least once about all four of these issues in 2022.

Democrats have produced most of the candidate tweets focusing on issues like climate change and abortion, while Republicans have produced most of those focusing on immigration . Across all three levels of government, Democratic candidates have produced the majority of all tweets regardless of topic (55% in total). Republican candidates have produced just 33% of all tweets. This pattern aligns with other Pew Research Center studies showing that Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents are more likely than Republicans and GOP leaners to use Twitter in general .

But in addition to these differences in basic tweeting behavior, there are partisan differences in how certain topics are being discussed by political candidates this year. So far in 2022, Democratic candidates have produced almost three-quarters of the tweets mentioning LGBTQ+ issues and identity and two-thirds or more of those mentioning environmental issues or abortion.

Conversely, Republican candidates have produced almost two-thirds of tweets about immigration – nearly double the GOP’s total share of candidate tweets overall. Republican candidates have also produced a large share of tweets mentioning topics like foreign policy (43%) and taxation (43%).

“Critical race theory” vs. “systemic racism”: Republicans and Democrats often use different language when talking about the same broad issue area. Republicans and Democrats often use very different language in their tweets, even when posting about the same general topic area. For example, in their tweets mentioning race, Republican candidates frequently reference the Black Lives Matter movement and use phrases such as “critical race theory” and “woke.” By contrast, Democrats’ tweets about race tend to be characterized by terms such as “equity,” “discrimination” or “systemic racism.”

When discussing the economy, Republicans and Democrats alike commonly reference inflation or the cost of living. However, Republicans often frame the issue with terms such as “crushing,” “skyrocketing” or “Bidenflation,” while Democrats commonly reference “recovery” and frame inflation with terms such as “price gouging” and “corporate greed.”

Although a recent survey by the Center found that Republican voters are much more likely than Democrats to consider violent crime to be a serious issue, candidates from both parties have tweeted about violent crime at similar rates throughout the year. However, Republican candidates’ tweets on crime are often characterized by terms such as “homicide” or “robbery” and make references to urban areas such as “Chicago” or “NYC.” By contrast, Democratic candidates often frame violent crime in the context of mass gun violence, especially in schools . 

Republican candidates are more likely than Democrats to use negative language on Twitter – in general and for all major topics studied. When examining all candidate tweets in 2022, Republican candidates are more likely to take a negative tone: Some 33% of tweets from Republicans have used negative language, compared with 25% of tweets from Democrats. Republican candidates have been especially likely to use negative language when discussing topics such as immigration (54% of such tweets from Republicans were negative in tone), the economy (53%), the pandemic (51%), climate policy (46%) and LGBTQ+ issues (45%).

Indeed, none of the 16 substantive topics identified in this study saw a larger share of negative tweets from Democratic candidates than from Republican candidates.

Discussion of the economy has been a constant on Twitter during the 2022 campaign, but other topics have fluctuated over time. Candidate tweets mentioning the economy have been relatively consistent in terms of the overall volume of activity, with Democrats and Republicans trading places in terms of total tweets mentioning the economy from week to week. Similarly, immigration has been a relatively consistent theme, apart from a small increase coinciding with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ decision to send migrants to Martha’s Vineyard in September.

Other topics have shifted in both overall volume and partisan composition over the course of the year. For instance, the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade and the shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, led to significant spikes in candidate tweets mentioning abortion and guns, respectively. And in each case, Democratic candidates have continued to tweet about these issues at substantially higher rates than Republicans.

After a brief period of interest in the early part of the year, candidate discussion of the COVID-19 pandemic has largely faded from sight. One of the defining events of recent years, the COVID-19 pandemic , has largely faded from the political conversation over the course of the 2022 campaign. Candidates for office have tweeted roughly 70,000 times about the pandemic since Jan. 1, but nearly half of those tweets (46%) were posted during the first three months of the year. From Sept. 1 through Oct. 24, candidates mentioned the pandemic in just under 11,000 tweets.

For registered voters, the pandemic also has slipped as a campaign issue. In an October survey by the Center , just 23% of voters said COVID-19 is very important to their vote this year – the lowest percentage among the 18 issues asked about in the survey and down from 33% in March .

As Election Day draws closer, partisan opposition has become more common in candidates’ tweets. As the campaign has progressed, candidates from both parties have more frequently referenced the opposing party – including specific prominent public officials – in their tweets. The overall volume of these tweets rose from roughly 5,000 per week in the early stages of the campaign to almost 10,000 per week by October. And when candidates have mentioned the opposing party, these references have been nearly universally negative. Some 95% of these tweets express disagreement, while fewer than 4% express some level of agreement.

In tweets mentioning the specific topics measured in this study, Republican candidates have mentioned Democrats in 20% of their tweets, while Democrats have mentioned Republicans in just 11% of theirs. Republican candidates have been especially likely to mention Democrats in tweets about topics such as foreign policy, taxes, climate and environment, the economy, immigration, and energy production. Meanwhile, Democrats have been especially likely to mention Republicans in tweets about the Jan. 6 hearings, tax policy, immigration and abortion rights.

Political candidates have mentioned Joe Biden and Donald Trump on Twitter as often as they have mentioned many issue areas. Even though 2022 is not a presidential election year, Joe Biden and Donald Trump each loom large on political candidates’ Twitter feeds. Some 4% of candidate tweets have mentioned either the current president or the former president – comparable to the share of candidate tweets that have mentioned the economy.

While Democratic and Republican candidates have mentioned Trump in a comparable share of their tweets this year, Republicans have been far more likely than Democrats to reference Biden or his administration (5% of tweets vs. 1.6% of tweets). Biden mentions are most common among Republican candidates at the federal level (7% of tweets from this group mention the Biden administration), but they are also fairly common among GOP candidates at the state and local levels as well (3% and 2% of tweets, respectively).

Mentions of bipartisanship are largely nonexistent on candidates’ Twitter accounts this year. Neither party’s candidates have had much to say about bipartisanship over the course of the year. Democrats are roughly three times as likely as Republicans to reference cooperation across the aisle, but even among Democratic candidates, this concept is mentioned in only 0.3% of tweets – versus just 0.1% of tweets by Republicans.

Candidates in California have contributed heavily to Twitter discussions about climate change, while those in Texas have contributed heavily to discussions about immigration. Candidates from California posted 8% of all candidate tweets in the Center’s analysis, but nearly 18% of tweets mentioning climate change or environmental issues. Likewise, candidates from Texas accounted for nearly 10% of all tweets, but almost 20% of tweets that mentioned immigration during the campaign.

Nearly two-thirds of all tweets from candidates running for office in 2022 did not mention any of the 16 issues included in this analysis. Most of the Twitter conversation among political candidates this year has focused on something other than the 16 substantive topics the Center classified in this analysis. Much of this content appears to be less about discussing substantive issues and more about raising general support and awareness for the candidates and their campaigns.

Note: For details on how we conducted this analysis, read the full methodology .

• Election 2022
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Sono Shah is an associate director focusing on data science at Pew Research Center .

Samuel Bestvater is a computational social scientist focusing on data science at Pew Research Center .

Republican Gains in 2022 Midterms Driven Mostly by Turnout Advantage

How the gop won the turnout battle and a narrow victory in last year’s midterms, turnout in 2022 house midterms declined from 2018 high, final official returns show, in 2022 midterms, nearly all senate election results again matched states’ presidential votes, public has modest expectations for washington’s return to divided government, most popular.

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• Published: 19 December 2023

American local government elections database

• Justin de Benedictis-Kessner   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-2751-379X 1   na1 ,
• Diana Da In Lee   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-1590-6644 2   na1 ,
• Yamil R. Velez 2   na1 &
• Christopher Warshaw 3   na1  

Scientific Data volume  10 , Article number:  912 ( 2023 ) Cite this article

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The study of urban and local politics in the United States has long been hindered by a lack of centralized sources of election data. We introduce a new database of about 78,000 candidates in 57,000 electoral contests that encompasses races for seven distinct local political offices in most medium and large cities and counties in the U.S. over the last three decades. This is the most comprehensive publicly-available source of information on local elections across the country. We provide partisan and demographic information about candidates in these races as well as electoral outcomes. This new database will facilitate a myriad of new research on representation and elections in local governments.

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Background & summary.

One of the most persistent challenges in the study of urban and local politics in the United States is the lack of information about local elections, candidates, and elected officials 1 , 2 . As a result, studies on local elections tend to focus on a single time period 3 , geographic unit 4 , or office 5 , rather than holistically examining variation across time, geography, and offices.

In this paper, we describe a new database of election returns from about 78,000 unique candidates in about 57,000 contests in 1,747 cities, counties, and school districts from 1989–2021. Our database is the most comprehensive publicly-available source of information on local elections across the entire country. It includes information about elections for mayors, city councils, county executives, county legislatures, sheriffs, prosecutors, and school boards. It also includes a host of supplemental data, including estimates of candidate partisanship, gender, race/ethnicity, and incumbency status. For many elections, it also includes information on the political characteristics of constituencies, such as their ideology and presidential voting patterns.

This new database will enable scholars to study a wide variety of research questions. It enables examination of whether politicians represent the demographic, partisan, and ideological characteristics of their constituents 6 , 7 , 8 . It also enables expanded work on the factors that affect local elections 9 , 10 , 11 . Moreover, it facilitates study of the incumbency advantage across election types, institutional contexts, and candidate characteristics 12 , 13 . Finally, this database enables scholars to expand the study of how elections shape a host of political outcomes such as policy 5 , 14 , 15 , 16 , 17 , 18 , political communication 19 , interest group activity 20 , 21 , and intergovernmental lobbying 22 .

This section describes how we constructed our database. Our target universe was all cities and counties with more than 50,000 people in the 2020 Census. There are 1,005 counties and 877 cities in our target universe. But many of these cities, especially in California, do not elect mayors, and most counties do not elect executives. Our data collection for school boards was more opportunistic. We also included district attorney (prosecutor) elections that had districts spanning multiple counties which we were not able to match to Census data. The database includes information on the vast majority of the cities and counties in our target universe. First, we describe how we assembled the raw election returns. Next, we describe how we appended supplemental data on candidates race/ethnicity, gender, and partisanship. Lastly, we discuss how we assembled supplemental data on the constituencies of many of the candidates in our database.

Election returns

The foundation for our data on election returns is previous work on mayoral elections 5 , 14 , 15 , county legislative elections 16 , sheriff elections 18 , 23 , prosecutor elections 24 , 25 , the MIT Election and Data Science’s Lab’s data on recent elections 26 , and the California statewide election database 27 . We built upon these datasets using several approaches. First, we expanded both the types of offices covered and the temporal coverage of these datasets. We worked with a team of research assistants who coded results from thousands of local elections based on city and county websites. In addition, we scraped data from the crowdsourced website OurCampaigns.com, statewide election websites where available, and some unofficial returns from newspaper archives. Where data sources overlapped in their coverage and conflicted, we prioritized administrative government records as the canonical source, then previously published datasets, then OurCampaigns.com, and then newspapers. These conflicts most likely occurred due to discrepancies between incomplete or provisional and official or final election results that are sometimes released at different times.

The resulting dataset of local election returns includes information on 57,139 contests and 77,853 unique candidates in 1,747 cities, counties, prosecutor districts, and school districts from 1989–2021 (Table  1 and Figs.  1 , 2 ). It includes information about elections for mayors, city councils, county executives, county legislatures, sheriffs, prosecutors, and school boards. In many cases, we verified the validity of the election returns by cross-checking them across sources.

Temporal Coverage of Elections Data.

Map of Elections Data.

Supplemental information on candidates

We augmented the raw election returns with an array of supplementary information about individual candidates, including their partisanship (even in officially nonpartisan elections), gender, race/ethnicity, and incumbency status. In order to do this, we matched the election returns with a wide range of auxiliary data that enables us to estimate candidates’ partisanship, race/ethnicity, and gender. First, we sought to match each candidate to a record in two national voter files by name and location. Second, we sought to match each candidate with campaign finance-based ideology scores 28 . Third, we matched candidates that served in Congress or state legislatures to determine their party and roll-call based ideal points. We also matched many candidates in recent elections with their Ballotpedia profiles and Reflective Democracy Campaign data ( https://wholeads.us/datasets/ ). Finally, we matched candidates with pictures we obtained from the Internet where possible.

Based on these data, we use Random Forests to predict the race/ethnicity, gender, and party identification of candidates in the data 29 . Random Forest is a collection of identically distributed classification trees, where each tree is comprised of a bootstrap sample from the training set and is grown using a recursive splitting rule that minimizes prediction error. To further reduce the correlation among decision trees, only a fraction of randomly selected covariates are used in each tree during the recursive splitting. Once the set of decision trees has been grown on the bootstrapped samples, the unsampled cases from the test set (“out-of-bag” sample) are used to generate predictions. In particular, the predicted probabilities for each class is generated based on the classification from the collection of decision trees and the final predicted class is generated based on a majority vote-i.e., the most frequent class.

Relative to other statistical learning approaches, Random Forests yield several desirable properties including high accuracy, robustness to outliers and noise, internally unbiased estimate of the generalization error, efficient computation, and the ability to handle many predictors. For example, comparing Random Forest with different versions of logistic regressions in class-imbalanced data, previous work finds that Random Forest provides significantly more accurate predictions in out-of-sample data than any of the logistic models 30 . We also ran several alternative models including ridge and lasso regularizations of generalized linear models, gradient boosting machines (GBM), as well as a super-learner, an ensemble method that accounts for both generalized linear and tree-based models 31 . We confirmed that Random Forest generates much higher accuracy rates than any of the generalized linear models and yields near-identical accuracy rates as GBM and super-learner.

For partisanship, we collapsed our election data by name, geography, and office, which resulted in approximately 61,894 unique observations (only including data with some information on partisanship). Roughly 49% of them ( N  = 30,115) had true party identification categorized as either Democrat or Republican (coded as a 0 or 1 for prob_democrat ). These are based on ballot returns for either the office in our data or, in a few cases, another office. We use this variable as our target outcome to train a Random Forest for binary classification with 10-fold cross-validation scheme. For model features, we use potentially noisy indicators from the voter file, campaign finance data 32 , the Reflective Democracy Campaign, and partisanship from other sources (e.g., Ballotpedia).

For race/ethnicity, collapsing our data by name, city, and office resulted in 75,591 unique observations (only including data with some information on race/ethnicity). Roughly 18% of them ( N  = 13,671) had true racial identification collected from various external sources, including official lists from non-profit organizations and human-labeled data from Amazon’s Mechanical Turk (coded as a 0 or 1 for prob_black and other race/ethnicity categories). Similar to the racial groups used in the Census Bureau and other commonly used prediction methods 33 , we divide race into five categories: White, Black, Latino, Asian, and Other. We use this variable as our target outcome to train a Random Forest for multi-class classification with 10-fold cross-validation scheme. For model features, we use information from the voter files, surname-based Bayesian racial predictions 33 , first and last name-based Bayesian predictions 34 , and predictions from a pre-trained convolutional neural network model based on images of public officials 35 . This approach produces more accurate predictions of race and ethnicity in our sample than existing methods that rely on names and/or geography alone 36 .

For gender, collapsing our data by name, city, and office resulted in 77,352 unique observations (only including data with some information on gender). Roughly 13% of them ( N  = 10,438) had true gender identification collected by the Reflective Democracy Campaign (coded as a 0 or 1 for prob_female ). We use this variable as our target outcome to train a Random Forest for binary classification with 10-fold cross-validation scheme. For model features, we use information from the voter files, first-name-based gender predictions 37 , and gender estimates in the DIME database 32 .

Overall, our approach generated a probabilistic estimate of most candidates’ partisanship, race/ethnicity, and gender that can be used to study representation, elections, and policymaking.

Constituency-level data

We augmented the election returns with a variety of information about many candidates’ constituencies. We included information about the ideological preferences of each city and county in our dataset 8 . We also included recent presidential election results for most cities and counties 38 , 39 , 40 . In addition, we assembled a new collection of shapefiles for many city council and county legislative districts. This enabled us to estimate presidential election returns in many local governments’ district-level constituencies by overlaying precinct-level presidential returns on top of the district shapefiles 41 .

Data Records

The complete American Local Government Elections Database is available for download on OSF 42 . The dataset can be accessed in different formats such as comma-separated files (.csv, for easy access in programs such as Stata, R, Python, or Excel) and in compressed R data files (.rds, for easy access using the R programming language).

The dataset includes two sets of files. First, we include candidate-level data ( ledb_candidatelevel.rds and ledb_candidatelevel.csv ), in which each observation is a candidate running in a discrete contest along with associated information about that candidate and electoral contest as well as its results. We provide a number of variables at the candidate level (Table  2 ).

Second, we include constituency-level data, in which each observation is at the level of a government jurisdiction. These include data for cities ( cities_constituency_data.csv ), counties ( counties_constituency_data.csv ), school districts ( schools_districts_constituency_data.csv ), city council districts ( city_council_districts_constituency_data.csv ), and county legislative districts ( county_leg_districts_constituency_data.csv ). These are available for nearly all cities and counties as a whole. We also have them available at the city council district-level in about 150 cities and the county legislative district level in about 130 counties (Table  3 ).

Technical Validation

In this section, we discuss a number of technical validations of our data. We validate a number of aspects of the candidate-level data, including the vote totals for individual candidates and our imputations for candidates’ partisanship, race/ethnicity, and gender.

Validation of election data

We validate our elections data by comparing the consistency of candidate’s vote totals across secondary sources, and obtaining administrative data where possible.

Validation of estimates of partisanship, race, and gender

A key contribution of our database is a set of estimates for candidates’ partisanship, race/ethnicity, and gender. In some cases, these are based on observed data on these variables. But in other cases, we use Random Forest algorithms for these variables based on potentially noisy indicators as described above. Thus, it is important to validate our estimates of these variables.

We first validate our Random Forest model of race/ethnicity using 20% of the data with outcomes as a test set. Table  4 shows the sensitivity (true positive rate), specificity (true negative rate), precision (positive predictive value), and F-1 score. Note that F-1 score is the harmonic mean of precision and sensitivity-i.e., \(2\cdot \frac{precision\cdot sensitivity}{precision+sensitivity}\) .

The F-1 score for our model of race/ethnicity is 0.929, which is significantly higher than other racial classification methods commonly used in academic research 33 , 34 , 35 . Our results also show substantially high sensitivity scores across all racial categories, particularly among Asians and Blacks that are generally associated with high false negative rates 33 . We also examine the Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC) curves and find the area under the ROC curve (AUC) to be at least as high as 0.97 across all racial categories, indicating an outstanding classification success.

Next, we perform the same validation check for our Random Forest model of gender using 20% of the data with outcome as a test set. Table  5 shows the results of our model performance. The F-1 score for our model of gender is approximately 0.993 and the AUC score is above 0.99, indicating a very high predictive ability. We also check whether our gender predictions for the subset of our candidate data that are female mayors (i.e. winning mayoral candidates) against recent estimates of mayoral gender from the Center for American Women and Politics (CAWP) 43 , 44 . We find that out of 103 candidates in our data that matched to CAWP’s list of women mayors, our random forests models estimate that two are men. This is similar to the accuracy rate reported in Table  5 . Through a manual check of CAWP’s lists of 661 unique mayors in 2021 and 2022 who are designated as women, we also find that seven of these mayors were actually men, yielding an accuracy rate of 0.989 - similar to our overall accuracy rate.

Lastly, we perform the same validation check for our Random Forest model of partisanship using 20% of the data with outcome as a test set. Table  6 shows the results of our model performance. The F-1 score for our model of partisanship is approximately 0.903 and the AUC score is above 0.95, indicating a very high predictive ability.

The data files we make available include the final estimated probabilities that each candidate falls in each category of partisanship, gender, and race/ethnicity. This enables scholars to make their own decisions about how to use the results of our imputation models in downstream analyses.

Usage Notes

As the most comprehensive record of local election outcomes and information about local political candidates, our database presents myriad opportunities for researchers looking to expand knowledge about democracy in subnational politics. There are several general points scholars should consider as they use the data.

First, the data is much more comprehensive than previous datasets on local elections. But the target universe is not totally comprehensive. It only includes cities, counties, and school districts with a population of at least 50,000 in 2020. Moreover, it is missing some elections in this target universe where we were unable to find data. In some cases, there may be raw election data for smaller geographic units available from the sources we discussed earlier 5 , 18 , 23 , 24 , 25 , 26 , 27 .

Second, researchers should note that many prosecutor districts span counties. In addition, one of our raw sources of prosecutor election data included unique numeric district identifiers, but no district numbers or names 25 . This makes it more difficult to determine incumbency status and other characteristics of prosecutor candidates. In cases where we were unable to properly match a contest to its county or district, we include the original district code from the source data and a synthetic fips code constructed by concatenating state codes with the district code from the source data.

Third, as described above, we imputed the partisanship and race of many candidates. This enables scholars to study a wide variety of research questions related to elections and representation. In the data, we provide the predicted probability of these imputations. For applications that study the causes and consequences of individual elections, scholars may choose to only include candidates with high predicted probabilities of being in particular racial, partisan, or gender categories 45 . For example, recent research has examined the close link between partisan voting patterns in national and subnational elections to argue that local races are increasingly nationalized 46 , 47 . Our database allows scholars to test both the causes and consequences of this nationalization across many different types of elected office. For this analysis, researchers may decide to classify candidates into the partisan group with the highest probability (e.g., only including candidates with known partisanship or ones with >90% in our imputation model).

Scholars could also use our database to examine the aggregate characteristics of candidates and election officials. For instance, an important question in the study of American elections is the under-representation of women and non-white racial groups at various levels of government 7 , 48 , 49 , 50 , 51 , 52 , 53 , 54 , 55 . While prior work suggests that women’s under-representation in local governments mirrors their underrepresentation in Congress and state legislatures, and that the representation of women in local government appears to have plateaued over the past two decades, the limits of previous data have prevented researchers from examining the barriers to both gender and racial parity in local politics 6 . Our local elections data enable researchers to assess questions about barriers to both women and racial minorities in politics at the subnational level by vastly expanding the temporal and geographic scope of previous data on local candidates and officeholders, as well as expanding the scope of previous datasets. When estimating the racial, gender, or partisan composition of a particular geographic unit, recent research finds that it is more accurate to average up the predicted probabilities for all individuals within a geographic unit rather than aggregating after assigning each individual to a single category based on the highest predicted probability 56 . Because our data provides the full distribution of predicted probabilities across each category for partisanship, race/ethnicity, and gender, researchers are able to examine topics like representation and turnout while avoiding substantial error in estimating the demographic composition.

A brief examination of over-time patterns of candidates’ race and gender in our data illustrates how it could be used to assess the institutional and contextual determinants of descriptive representation. Figure  3 shows the relative representation of women, Blacks, Hispanics, and Asian-Americans based on the ratio between the share of local officeholders of each type and their fraction of the population. This brief demonstration indicates that women remain under-represented in the majority of local offices, with the percentage of winning candidates under their percentage in the population for all offices except school boards. The breadth of our data allows us to expand this usage beyond single offices or small time spans, and shows that there are dramatic differences in patterns across offices in women’s representation. Women are most under-represented in sheriff elections, and tend to be best represented in school board elections, in line with recent work on California 57 . Similarly, our data on multiple racial groups allows usage of our data to examine under-representation of multiple groups across offices. Figure  3 suggests that Hispanics and Asian-Americans are particularly under-represented and that descriptive representation is especially poor among sheriffs, but that city councils, in particular, consist of Black legislators at rates roughly proportional to population demographics. White officeholders, meanwhile, are overrepresented in every local office across the last three decades.

Descriptive representation by office. Lines indicate smoothed local averages of the ratio between the percent of officeholders and the percent of the population in each gender, racial/ethnic group, and are plotted for years after which our data cover at least 20% of the total jurisdictions for which we have some composition data for that office.

Researchers may conduct many other analyses using variables described earlier in the manuscript, as well as by combining our data with additional institutional or contextual data. We encourage researchers to fully harness our data to both further describe the heterogeneity in these over-time and between-office trends, as well as further examine the causes and consequences of local elections.

Code availability

The replication code for the two demonstrations of our data is publicly available on OSF 42 , and can be used under a CC-BY license.

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Acknowledgements

We are grateful for many conversations about this project with Dan Thompson. We appreciate excellent research assistance on this project from Camila Alvarez Bisbe, Caitlin Berg, Noam Brenner, Tom Cawley, Cole Dushin, Alexander Hupp, Josh Koppel, Jace Knie, Cory Maks-Solomon, Jeremy Marsh, Daniel Perez, Rob Pressel, John Ramsey, Annie Salyers, Anmol Sapru, Josiah Selagea, Mikaela Rose Tajo, Ariel Wexler, and Yiling Yao. We are also grateful to Fernando Ferreira, Joseph Gyourko, Elisabeth Gerber, Dan Hopkins, Dan Thompson, Carissa Byrne Hessick, Michael Zoorob, and Sam Krumholz for generously sharing data on elections they had collected on various local offices. We appreciate feedback on earlier versions of this manuscript from audiences at the 2021 Conference on Election Sciences, Reform, and Administration. This work was supported by funding from the MIT Election Data and Science Lab, the Russell Sage Foundation, and the Boston University Initiative on Cities.

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These authors contributed equally: Justin de Benedictis-Kessner, Diana Da In Lee, Yamil R. Velez, Christopher Warshaw.

Authors and Affiliations

John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, Cambridge, USA

Justin de Benedictis-Kessner

Department of Political Science, Columbia University, New York, USA

Diana Da In Lee & Yamil R. Velez

Department of Political Science, George Washington University, Washington, USA

Christopher Warshaw

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Contributions

C.W. and J.D.B.K. conceived the overall project. C.W. and J.D.B.K. gathered most of the raw elections data and auxiliary data. Y.V. gathered data on the race/ethnicity of city councilors. D.D.I.L. and Y.V. developed the underlying approach for imputing race/ethnicity. D.D.I.L. ran the Random Forests imputation models for both race/ethnicity and partisanship. C.W., D.D.I.L. and Y.V. gathered the GIS files of city council and county legislative maps that were used to estimate the constituency-level datasets. All authors contributed equally to the drafting of the manuscript and reviewed the final draft.

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Correspondence to Christopher Warshaw .

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de Benedictis-Kessner, J., Lee, D.D.I., Velez, Y.R. et al. American local government elections database. Sci Data 10 , 912 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41597-023-02792-x

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Reflections on the Philippine presidential race

By Diana J. Mendoza

T he race for the presidency in the 2022 Philippine elections may be the most highly divisive and contested referendum for the highest public office in the country. It is a high-stakes and high-risk contest with intense pressures to win from both the top contenders for the office and those who support them. Focusing on the top two contenders, it is a race between stopping one seeking a path back to power and electing one seeking a great reset of powers in the government.

Instead of focusing on what challenges await the next President and the country, we focus on what we can learn from the race for the presidency.

1. Elections are not just about voting candidates into or out of of fi ce. These are not merely about the change of names and faces. Elections are about the transfer and legitimation of power. Should we take a step forward to usher in a new (or reformed) governance system or take two steps back to restore an old, tarnished, and contested rule?

2. Elections should not be about those who run for office. It is about the people who should be served — their needs, rights, interests, and demands. Don’t we all deserve a new government that helps more (or mostly) the vulnerable and the marginalized while seeking to protect all regardless of any markers of differences?

3. People cannot be restrained or constrained. Filipinos are resilient. True. But when it’s their future and their loved ones’ future at high stake, they mobilize and organize. Doesn’t the spirit of volunteerism we all witnessed renew and give new meaning to the Filipino’s “ bayanihan ,” from that of communal cooperation to collective action and accountability?

4. Conventional politics must end. Political parties cannot effectively steer the public space until genuine political party reforms are made. Shouldn’t we sustain the “people’s movements” seeking to expand the political space available and bring in the concerns of everyday life that are silenced by dominant powers operating in the society?

5. No issues are either politically or morally compelling. Politically contentious or not, all issues are and should always be both politically and morally compelling. Shouldn’t we stand up for the oppressed and unjustly persecuted and the basic sectors who are really in need? Shouldn’t we stand against the politically and morally corrupt?

6. Public service is the name but public accountability is the rule of the game. Article XI, Section 1 of the 1987 Philippine Constitution states that “Public office is a public trust … officers and employees must at all times, be accountable to the people…” Why is it so difficult to execute? Shouldn’t all those who run audit themselves first even before running?

Instead of focusing on what opportunities await the next President, we focus on the salient issues and tasks for the next President to act on. These issues and tasks echo those of the Ateneo de Manila University’s Department of Political Science published in a working paper series related to the 2022 presidential and vice-presidential elections and accessible via admupol.org.

1. Pass a Security of Tenure (SOT) law that will protect workers against abusive contractualization. The next President must certify the SOT bill as urgent and mobilize support from both the House of Representatives and the Senate. Review overseas employment and prioritize the creation of jobs locally and the organization of a task force on reintegration while sustaining protection mechanisms. Forge bilateral agreements to safeguard Filipinos abroad and create migration resource centers outside of the NCR (National Capital Region) and urban areas to assist families back home.

2. Stop the misogyny and privileging of men over women that still envelope Philippine governance and politics. Socio-economic targets should not be gender-blind. They should be speci fi c and implicit in achieving gender equality and underscore bringing people together instead of polarizing the polity as well as framed and executed with an ethic of care.

3. Declare and address a crisis in education aggravated by the COVID-19 pandemic. Provide higher funding for education where the Philippines’ current 3% budget is lower than what is required by UN standards. The next President must be able to resolve issues concerning the mismatch of the skills and talents of graduates that our education system produces and the needs of our society as well as demands of industries.

4. Develop a strong public healthcare system with strong public health infrastructure throughout the country that are able to respond to any pandemics like COVID-19, non-communicable diseases, and other-health related concerns. Toward this end, the next President must ensure the effective and efficient implementation of the Universal Health Care law, the provision of free and accessible healthcare through the National Health Insurance Program and Health Care Provider Network in provinces and cities.

5. Synergize the imperatives of the security sector and justice sector reforms with Sustainable Development Goal 16 which includes the promotion of peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, the provision of access to justice for all, and building effective, accountable institutions at all levels. There is a need to shift from a militaristic, anti-insurgency approach toward human security and a whole-of-government approach to addressing the root causes of rebellion.

6. Put inclusivity, transparency and accountability at the core of the government. Don’t we all deserve public of fi cials who do not only demonstrate excellence in public service but also maintain a culture of excellence? Under the leadership of the next President, can all agencies and instrumentalities of the government aim for a culture of excellence by meeting International Public Sector Accounting Standards and earn the Commission on Audit’s seal of approval? Can the next President direct all government agencies to an audit of its management system to meet the international standard for quality management systems? To start the process, will the next President boldly order a full disclosure policy that can promote greater transparency in public service, and hence, start combating problems of corruption and patronage politics?

In light of these salient lessons and tasks, will the next President of the Philippines draft a new history with a renewed faith in democracy? Or will the next President thrust the country and its people back to a history that will forever remain tarnished, mired, and highly contested?

Diana J. Mendoza, PhD is faculty and former chair (2017-2021) of the Department of Political Science, Ateneo de Manila University.

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[OPINION] The idea of a ‘political middle’ in the May 2022 elections

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This is AI generated summarization, which may have errors. For context, always refer to the full article.

Illustration by Janina Malinis

I recently posted about the idea of a “political middle” on my Facebook wall. I argued that in the May 2022 elections, the (presidential) candidate perceived to be the political middle has the greatest chance of winning.

In this piece, I articulate this notion and invite readers to share their own thoughts about the matter.  

Polarization as context 

Ever since President Duterte came into power, Filipinos have been conscripted into two opposing camps: the Duterte Diehard Supporters (DDS) and the Dilawans. Essentially,  the two camps represent those supportive and non-supportive of the Duterte administration. The replacement of the otherwise benign terms “supportive” and “non-supportive” with the acrimonious terms “DDS” and “Dilawans” was not accidental. In the 2016 elections, the terms were employed to heat up the campaign and drive voters to show not just electoral support but loyalty and loving devotion:  the DDS to their Tatay Digong and the Dilawans to Mar Roxas, the chosen successor of then President PNoy, who was revered as the son of EDSA heroes Ninoy and Cory Aquino. 

To defeat one another, the Duterte and Roxas camps demonized each other.  In this demonization game, the Duterte camp came out successful, because the Roxas camp faced competition not just from Duterte but also from former ally Grace Poe and then Vice President Jejomar Binay. The election results of 2016 show that had Roxas (9,978,175 votes), Poe (9,100,991 votes), and Binay (5,416,140 votes) forged an alliance, their combined votes of more than 24 million would have made Duterte’s 16 million a mere far second. And even if only Roxas and Poe combined forces, that alliance would still have yielded 19 million votes, 3 million more than Duterte’s.  

Instead of mellowing out after the campaign period, the demonization game continued. Even in the midst of a pandemic, four years into his presidency, one would still hear President Duterte lamenting and appealing to the public and polarizing the public – Huwag kayong maniwala sa mga dilawan, oposisyon (Don’t believe the yellows, the opposition). The term “dilawan” has become synonymous with anyone and everyone critical of the President’s governance. One is either loyal to President Duterte or a dilawan. There is supposed to be no nuancing, no middle ground, no public debate.  

[OPINION] The Dilawans, the DDS, the Dead Tired, and the Dedma

Political middle as electoral strategy 

Given the context of intense polarization, the candidate who will capture “the political middle” is likely to get the most number of votes. Why?  Because the positioning of being in the middle will allow one to generate votes from both the DDS and the Dilawan camps. Elections, after all, is about numbers, and if a candidate can get votes from both camps, that could be a winning formula. Especially for the “opposition,” capturing the political middle could mean denying the Duterte camp another sure majority win.    

It has also been argued that the best scenario is not to create a political middle, rather, to maintain – even intensify — the existing polarization but to make sure that this time around, the 24 million of 2016 would show up to support an anti-Duterte candidate. This argumentation is problematic because it might not be accurate to assume that the 24 million vote base of 2016 share the same anti-Duterte sentiment. The Poe and Binay campaigns after all, were anti-Roxas more than they were anti-Duterte. In other words, one must not assume that the 16 million support base of Duterte in 2016 has remained constant. That number could be much higher given his populist – polarizing – ways of mobilizing support for his governance. All surveys, in fact, point to this possibility. Duterte’s numbers have never really dropped significantly since his 2016 campaign. Thus, for a presidential candidate to win against the Dutertes in May 2022, he or she must also eat into the Duterte vote base and/or create a broad alliance that will include politicians and voters formerly perceived to be supporting extreme, polarizing positions.  

Copy of CJ Corona’s motion for preliminary hearing

Political middle as public discourse .

My idea of a political middle, however,  is not only for electoral purposes. It is also not about “being neutral.” My idea of a political middle carries with it an anti-polarization public discourse.  

I think our society needs to move away from the vicious polarization that has been promoted by the Duterte administration to prop up its authoritarian agenda. Especially at this moment in time, with COVID-19 ravaging our entire country, the DDS-Dilawan divide is useless. We are all just citizens needing health care, incomes, education, housing, food; needing to feel secured and protected amid a health pandemic.   

The public discourse that we need is not about which presidential bet we should be loyal to, rather, which presidential bet will deliver the requirements for our country to (i) flatten the COVID curve, (ii) recover from the social and economic devastation of the COVID pandemic, and (iii) bring back democratic space so that problem-solving especially about COVID response can be shared and negotiated across broad sections of society.  This election season should be the time to make public discourse inclusive. No more DDS, no more Dilawan, no more loyalists – just citizens.   

Leni Robredo: Anti-polarization candidate 

The president we need in 2022 is one who will make us think of ourselves – and each other – as Filipino citizens, not as loyal subjects of any politician.  Someone who will move public discourse away from toxic, polarizing frames to problem-solving modes of thinking. This is necessary, because if we fail to solve our nation’s real and most pressing problems soon – and together – we might not even have a nation to speak of.  

The Duterte-Marcos camps are unlikely to go to the political middle or carry any anti-polarization discourse. They will continue to exact loyalty as reasoning for support: “with them or against them.” If Sara Duterte and/or Bongbong Marcos will run, they will probably be presented by their campaign teams as better versions – not opposites – of their fathers.  

Leni Robredo, meanwhile, looks to be an anti-polarization candidate. Robredo has been very clear with her anti-Duterte, anti-authoritarian stand, but these stances have always be on policy. Never derogatory or polarizing. She has also never thrown mud at emerging opponents Manny Pacquiao, Panfilo Lacson, or Isko Moreno. At the same time, she has never positioned herself as the lapdog of any “yellow” party or group. In her latest interview (September 25, 2021, Radyo Katipunan), she in fact claimed that nobody has a monopoly of malasakit (compassion) for the country. It is not clear whether Robredo will run for the presidency or not. What is clear is that if she runs, she will not be polarizing, she will be middle.  

Among those who have already announced and positioned themselves as “opposition,” Isko Moreno clearly stands out. His messaging of “Ako/Tayo si Isko” seeks identification and support.  No dapat or “should” – just “is.” The message suggests a statement of fact that most Filipinos are like him – working hard for the money, to survive and lift themselves out of poverty.   

The “healing president” messaging is also very powerful. It positions him as someone who will heal the wounds brought about by the Duterte administration. Some of Isko’s pronouncements have obviously been leveled against the excesses and failures of the Duterte administration. Many people doubt, however, both his sincerity and capability to correct Duterte’s injustices (e.g. Senator Leila de Lima’s incarceration). For Isko to be credible as the political middle, his anti-authoritarian messaging must be as clear as his anti-elite positioning.  

Full disclosure: Leni Robredo is my political middle. I  don’t subscribe to the DDS-Dilawan polarization because I think these gloss over the real, pressing problems of both authoritarianism and elitism. Leni Robredo, while associated with the Liberal Party (therefore allegedly “dilawan”), does not come across as elitist. She seems to be the “typical tita” who’s all over the place, trying to get things done. No frills, no fuss, just OC (obsessive compulsive) about getting things in order.  

Some have been claiming that Leni Robredo is “not presidential” and would be better suited for a DSWD secretary position. I beg to disagree. Because even if she is DSWD secretary material,  it looks like that’s exactly the next president that we need. Someone who will deliver the goods so that we can all survive and recover from the pandemic. Leni Robredo will not just get us out of the DDS-Dilawan polarization straitjacket, she will also be our much-needed COVID-time President. She needs to stop saying, however,  that COVID response should not be political , because it is very political. COVID response has, in fact, been used as a pretext by the incumbent administration to continue institutional transgressions such as corruption, patronage-based public service delivery, and repression of critics.  

Both Leni and Isko have been doing COVID response since the start of the pandemic. But there is a significant difference: the scale of their work. Isko has been doing COVID response at the level of the city while Leni has been doing it at the level of the nation. That is the COVID-time President that we need in 2022 – someone who already knows how to navigate COVID response at a larger scale. Herd immunity, healthcare system improvements, and economic recovery – these are all challenges that have to be achieved at the level of the nation. Otherwise, they cannot be achieved at all.  

Yes, Leni Robredo is my political middle. But she is not my bottomline. (And to be clear: I am not part of her team – or anyone’s team for that matter). My bottomline is this country’s survival and welfare, given the context of Duterte’s polarizing governance that has meant the loss of so many lives,  and the piling up and non-resolution of social problems – COVID or no COVID. We need to recover from both economic and political recession, and I think Leni Robredo is best poised to lead us in this recovery process.  

Philippine democracy is dying.  Let us please use the May 2022 elections to breathe new life into it.  – Rappler.com

Carmel Abao, PhD  is Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science at the Ateneo de Manila University. She works in the areas of labor migration and politics and governance.

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Boris Johnson should be very worried about what 2022 local council results mean for the next general election

Professor, Department of Government, University of Essex

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The Conservatives ended up with a net loss of 487 seats in the May 5 local elections. Labour gained 108 and the Liberal Democrats 223.

The scale of the Conservative losses has led to speculation that prime minister Boris Johnson’s majority could be in jeopardy at the next general election – due to take place in 2024 at the latest.

It should be noted that turnouts are much lower in local elections compared with general elections and that local contests do not take part in all parts of the country at the same time. That means we are not comparing like with like here. However, historical data does suggest that when parties fare badly in a midterm local election, they do indeed go on to do badly in a general election.

What history shows

Historically, there has been a very strong relationship between the number of Conservative councillors elected and the number of Conservative MPs elected to the House of Commons two years later. For the 12 general elections since February 1974, the correlation between the two is very strong (0.84).

Why is this relationship so close? The principal reason is that there is a lot of inertia in electoral politics, even though volatility in voting behaviour is growing over time. Parties generally spend a long time in opposition before defeating the incumbent party of government in a general election. Local elections are the canary in the coalmine when it comes to signalling such defeats.

To illustrate this, when Labour won the October 1974 general election, it controlled 40% of the council seats in Britain. But by 1977, two years before Margaret Thatcher’s Tory victory in the 1979 election, it controlled only 28% of these seats . Equally, when John Major won the 1992 general election, the Conservatives controlled 34% of the council seats, but by 1995, two years before Labour’s landslide election win, it was only 21%.

The strong correlation means we can use the seat shares in the May 5 local elections to predict the seat shares in the next general election. If we analyse this relationship using a statistical technique called multiple regression , we find that for every 100 Conservative councillors elected in total this year we can expect about four Conservative MPs to be elected in two years time. This, of course, works in reverse, making it possible to forecast the effects of the loss of Conservative seats in local government this year on the party’s performance in a 2024 general election.

The forecast is that the Conservatives will win 243 seats in the House of Commons in that general election if the relationship holds up. In other words. they will lose 122 seats compared with 2019.

That said, there is a problem that the forecast is based on very few cases and so it is subject to wide margins of error. This error means that there is a 95% chance that the party will win between 193 and 293 seats in that election, so the prediction is not very precise. However, the important point is that even the most optimistic forecast of 293 seats won is well below the 326 seats needed to form a majority. It looks like British politics is in for another sea change in the next election.

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‘I’m disgusted’: readers in the Philippines on the 2022 election result

Seven Filipinos share their views on the victory of Ferdinand ‘Bongbong’ Marcos Jr and the future they see for the country

A fter a landslide election victory, Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr is to become the next president of the Philippines . The son and namesake of the late dictator received more than 30m votes, beating his closest rival, the current vice-president, Leni Robredo.

Here, seven people in the Philippines share their views on the result and how they feel about the future of the country.

‘Utterly disappointed’

I’m utterly disappointed with how ill-informed people are and this election shows how bad democracy can be. My dad is a Marcos apologist, and I used to believe that martial law was a “golden era” because he told me so until I enrolled and graduated law school. My dad is a hardworking person and I can respect opinions, but I can’t allow historical revisionism.

My father told me that I should listen to him because he thinks textbooks and education, and news and basically all forms of credible info, are all just made up by oligarchs to control the narrative and keep Filipinos poor.

I voted for Leni Robredo and can’t believe how efficient she is with her time and how diligent she is in serving the people. I can’t believe the majority of Filipinos are trashing her for being too good to be true. I just hope that after this administration people will come to their senses. Lyn, 27, Baguio city – voted for Robredo

‘It’s a grim time in the Philippines’

The election results are appalling and are a demonstration of how history revisionism has been happening right under our noses the past few years. I honestly cannot fathom the idea of being under a Marcos administration. It is a grim time in the Philippines at the moment.

I voted for Leni Robredo. My vote was informed by my confidence in her integrity, qualifications and competencies as a leader. She proved herself during her six-year term as vice-president to Duterte. She offered hope to the Filipino people that we can actually vote for someone good and just. I hope for a Philippines rid of political dynasties. I hope that the Philippines finally rejects politicians who are unqualified and stops voting for celebrities, entertainers and others who know nothing about writing bills or passing laws.

We cannot be swayed by empty promises any more. I hope that every single Filipino holds the new administration accountable and is open to calling out and criticising where they fall short. Celina, 24, government worker, Metro Manila – voted for Robredo

I feel ecstatic about the election results. The Marcoses built a lot of infrastructure which still exists today – infrastructure in the Philippines has been neglected for decades. Our expectation is that it will now be the focus of this new administration.

I feel that the presidencies following that of Ferdinand Marcos Sr did not really bring about lasting progress. The Philippines continues to lag behind Asean [Association of South-east Asian Nations] neighbours. It is hoped that the new administration will work towards defeating the pandemic, reviving the economy and making the Philippines more competitive and investor-friendly. Mary, 48, project finance analyst, Mandaluyong city – voted for Ferdinand Marcos Jr

‘Filipinos want a Marcos return in order to instil discipline, progress, and bring back peace and order’

People don’t realise that even though there was support for Leni [Robredo], there was a more powerful silent majority who supported Marcos Jr. Filipinos want a Marcos return in order to instil discipline, progress, and bring back peace and order.

I voted for Pac-Man [Manny Pacquiao]. He is clean and has the heart and will to reach out to his people. He has shown true and sincere dedication in service and is known for his public service. He has also gained wisdom through his years as a congressman and senator. On top of his rigid boxing training, he is a true Cinderella man. Rene, 63, architect, Nueva Ecija – voted for Manny Pacquiao

‘A big embarrassment’

It’s a big embarrassment, for we suffered under the brutality and greed of the parents of Marcos Jr. I couldn’t in conscience vote for Marcos Jr, because I don’t believe the narrative that the reign of his father is the Philippine golden age, which it was not.

I also could not vote for his opponent [Robredo] because I felt she would just be a repeat of Noynoy Aquino. So I voted for the leftist candidate Leody de Guzman as a protest vote but wish Sara Duterte ran for president instead. We have a weak political party system and I believe the problem in the Philippines is we have a defective constitution. I hope with the big mandate of the president he will initiate the rewriting of the constitution and change the current political system. Edwin, 63, retired, Pampanga, Central Luzon – voted for Leody de Guzman

‘Some of the other candidates just do not understand the ordinary Filipino psyche’

It’s insanity to perpetually trap ourselves in the events that transpired in 1970s and early 80s. Some of the other candidates just do not understand the ordinary Filipino psyche. I’m a Mindanaoan, [from the south of the country] and would rather have federalism than full independence. I want a country that opens our economy to the world, free and not too tied to the west or east. We want a pragmatist like Duterte is. He’s mostly misunderstood in the west – he may be crude and brash but he thinks realistically.

I voted BBM/Sara and hope they will continue the current administration’s build, build, build programme and the drug war. I didn’t vote for BBM/Sara forgetting the horrors of the past. I voted because they are the only ones left who at least have the intention to build on what we already have today. AJ, 48, computer programmer, Cagayan de Oro – voted for Marcos Jr

‘Disgusted’

I am disgusted about the results. With EDSA – the People Power revolution – on my mind, I can still vividly recall my 10-year-old self sitting atop my papa’s shoulders chanting laban [Tagalog for fight] and flashing the L sign. In that year, 1986, I was there, a part of the people power that toppled the abusive dictatorship and witnessed right before my eyes the rebirth of democracy that started from a simple yellow ribbon.

Today, 36 years after the EDSA revolution, darkness has clouded the pink ray of hope. I am dismayed and definitely not satisfied with the way the national election turned out. I am praying that every Filipino will have access to quality education, to proper healthcare, and that there will be enough nutritious food for every Filipino family’s table. Maria, 45, works in providing training and education, Albay

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The 2022 local elections liveblog

Join us for exclusive analysis of the results as they come in.

By Ben Walker

Near 4,000 wards electing 6,900 councillors are up for grabs on Thursday 5 May. Control of key local authorities throughout Great Britain, and maybe even the fate of our prime minister, rests on the election results to come. Welcome to the New Statesman’s 2022 local elections liveblog, helmed by senior data journalist for the New Statesman and co-founder of Britain Elects Ben Walker.

Get the results, mapped and charted, here [available from 10pm].

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Elections in Nepal: 2022 Local Elections

On Friday, May 13, Nepali voters will have the opportunity to vote for representatives to fill 35,221 local legislative and executive seats. This year, voters will choose from a total of 145,010 candidates.

Nepal promulgated its new constitution Sept. 20, 2015, initiating the country’s transition to a federal state. This election is only the second local election since the adoption of the new constitution and transition to federalism. It provides a new opportunity for local participation in government, especially for over three million Nepali youth who will be eligible to participate in their first election. The Election Commission Nepal (ECN) recently announced its decision to allow Nepali citizens to register on the voters’ list before they turn 18 and to vote as long as they are 18 years old on Election Day. The ECN estimates that, because of this decision, about 200,000 more young Nepalis will be able to cast ballots in the 2022 elections.

To help you understand this important electoral process, the International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES) provides Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) on Elections in Nepal: 2022 Local Elections . IFES FAQs include:

• Who are citizens voting for on Election Day?
• Who can vote in these elections?
• What is the election management body? What are its powers?
• How will election disputes be adjudicated?

Learn more about IFES' programs in Nepal and follow @IFESAsiaPacific on Twitter.

Published on May 5, 2022.

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Amid wartime repression, pro-Putin candidates sweep to victory in regional and local elections.

The elections were an early test of whether the upheaval caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has affected voters.

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By Ivan Nechepurenko

Reporting from Tbilisi, Georgia

• Sept. 12, 2022

Against a backdrop of tightening press freedom and repression amid the war in Ukraine , Russians voted overwhelmingly for pro-Kremlin candidates in regional and municipal elections over the weekend, according to results published on Monday.

Candidates nominated by the ruling United Russia Party or those loyal to the Kremlin won races for heads of all of the 14 Russian regions where elections were held, according to Russia’s Central Electoral Commission. United Russia, the party of President Vladimir V. Putin, also won a majority in six regional legislatures where voting occurred, the commission said.

In the city of Moscow, where lawmakers were up for election in most municipalities, more than 77 percent of seats went to pro-Kremlin candidates, according to Tass , a Russian state news agency.

Many anti-government politicians have fled the country. Some have been sentenced to prison terms for publicly criticizing Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Although Mr. Putin has dominated Russian politics for more than two decades, he has long used elections that carry a veneer of competitiveness to try to legitimize his rule. And while the elections are often rife with fraud, they typically offer an opening for the political opposition to express discontent.

In some instances, especially at the relatively low level of municipal councils, candidates who have been critical of the Kremlin were able to get elected. And on Monday, already-serving municipal deputies from 18 councils in Moscow and St. Petersburg signed a petition calling on Mr. Putin to resign. The petition came after a municipal council in St. Petersburg last week called on the State Duma, the lower house of parliament, to investigate Mr. Putin for treason over his decision to invade Ukraine. Those deputies have been charged by police with discrediting the Russian army, an administrative offense.

Mr. Putin’s grip on Russia’s political system has held largely because of his policymakers’ ability to maintain relative economic stability. The elections this weekend were an early test of whether the economic upheaval caused by Western sanctions stemming from Mr. Putin’s invasion of Ukraine has had an effect on voters.

They took place in the climate of almost total censorship of the mainstream press, making it hard to gauge people’s true attitudes toward the government. Following the invasion in February, Mr. Putin tightened media laws, forcing the few remaining liberal news outlets to shut down.

The campaigning and voting periods were marred by multiple violations, according to a report by Golos, a Russian elections watchdog , which cited official intimidation of election observers and unequal access to state media for opposition candidates.

The report called the elections “unfree and unequal,” saying that “it is impossible to determine the real will of the voters under these conditions.”

The elections were held over three days, which made them more vulnerable to fraud because election observers could not ensure the security of ballots overnight. Critics also said that online voting made it easier to falsify the results.

Still, some voters appeared to use their ballots to criticize the Kremlin or its war in Ukraine. Messages including “Russia without Putin!” or “For peace” were scrawled on some ballots, according to photographs posted on social media. The photos could not be independently verified.

Ivan Nechepurenko has been a Times reporter since 2015, covering politics, economics, sports and culture in Russia and the former Soviet republics. He was raised in St. Petersburg, Russia, and in Piatykhatky, Ukraine. More about Ivan Nechepurenko

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With his army making advances in Ukraine and his political grip tightened at home, President Vladimir Putin of Russia arrived in Beijing  in search of another win: more support from his “dear friend,” Xi Jinping .

The Biden administration is increasingly concerned that Putin is gathering enough momentum  to change the trajectory of the war.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken sought to reassure Ukrainians  that they could weather an ominous new Russian offensive and count on long-term support from the United States and its European allies.

World’s Nuclear Inspector: Rafael Grossi took over the International Atomic Energy Agency five years ago at what now seems like a far less fraught moment. With atomic fears everywhere, the inspector is edging toward mediator .

Frozen Russian Assets: As much as $300 billion in frozen Russian assets is piling up profits and interest income by the day. Now, Ukraine’s allies are considering how to use those gains to aid Kyiv .

Rebuilding Ukrainian Villages: The people of the Kherson region have slowly rebuilt their livelihoods since Ukraine’s military forced out Russian troops. Now they are bracing for another Russian attack .

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Wyoming purges more than 25 percent of its registered voters, although it’s not unusual for voter rolls to fluctuate, local election officials want residents to know that anyone who didn’t vote in the 2022 general election must register again to vote this year..

• Policy States Need to Improve Voter Purge Policies Aug. 18, 2023  ·  TNS

NYC Council announces appeal of ruling that invalidated city’s noncitizen voting law

T he City Council asked the state’s highest court Monday to reverse a ruling that struck down a law giving hundreds of thousands of noncitizen New Yorkers the right to vote in local elections.

The law was first invalidated in June 2022 by Staten Island Supreme Court Justice Ralph Porzio, who found it violated state election laws holding that only U.S. citizens should be allowed to vote. The ruling prompted Mayor Adams’ administration to file an appeal, but the Supreme Court’s appellate division rejected it last month and upheld Porzio’s decision.

On Monday afternoon, a spokesman for City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams announced the city Law Department had filed a notice on behalf of the Council asking that the State Court of Appeals, New York’s top court, undo the Porzio ruling and allow the noncitizen voting law to take effect.

“Empowering New Yorkers to participate in our local democratic process can only strengthen New York City by increasing civic engagement,” the spokesman, Rendy Desamours, said in a statement. “We look forward to the Court of Appeals’ consideration of the Council’s appeal.”

Spokespeople for the mayor did not immediately return requests for comment on whether his office will file its own appeal to the top court. The deadline for filing a notice of appeal in the case is Monday.

The Council’s action came on the heels of attorneys from the nonprofit LatinoJustice law firm filing their own otice this past Friday calling on the State Court of Appeals to reverse Porzio’s ruling.

On Monday morning, reps from LatinoJustice joined immigration advocates on the City Hall steps to urge the mayor to team up with them in the appeal push.

“We really hope that Mayor Adams joins us in this case,” said Nora Moran, a policy director at the United Neighborhood Houses , one of several groups that took part in the rally.

Porzio’s ruling came in response to a lawsuit filed by Staten Island Borough President Vito Fossella and a group of other local Republican politicians. The GOP pols have argued that granting noncitizens the right to vote in local elections would dilute the electoral power of citizens and violate the state constitution.

Supporters of the law, which was passed by the City Council in December 2021, say it’s morally sound to let noncitizen residents vote in local elections, given that they pay local taxes.

The law doesn’t give undocumented immigrants the ability to vote, but only extends that right to noncitizens with legal status, such as green card holders, as long as they’ve maintained New York residency for at least 30 days. According to the City Council, the law would make about 800,000 immigrants in New York City eligible to vote.

The law only gives noncitizens the right to cast ballots in municipal elections for mayor, public advocate, comptroller, borough president and City Council. It does not expand the right to vote in federal and state elections.

Eva Santos Veloz, a 34-year-old immigrant from the Dominican Republic who resides legally in the U.S. thanks to the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, said on the City Hall steps that the city’s large immigrant community continues to be “ignored.” She argued the noncitizen voting law could change that.

“We are not just fighting for ourselves, but for the future of our city, our children,” she said.

©2024 New York Daily News. Visit nydailynews.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

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West Virginia primary election results 2024

West Virginia has 20 Democratic delegates and 32 Republican delegates up for grabs in its presidential primaries.

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Judge in harris county orders new election in final republican challenge stemming from 2022 results.

Republican candidate Tami C. Pierce lost to Democratic Judge DaSean A. Jones by fewer than 500 votes out of more than 1 million cast. Judge David Peeples held that more than 1,400 of those votes were illegal, and it was impossible to determine which candidate received them.

A judge has overturned the results of a 2022 Harris County judicial contest and ordered a new election.

Judge David Peeples on Wednesday upheld Republican Tami C. Pierce's challenge of her election loss to Democratic Judge DaSean A. Jones. He also ordered that Jones pay Pierce's attorney's fees and court costs.

Peeples previously adjudicated 20 other Republican challenges of losses to Democrats in the 2022 Harris County elections. Only one case, Lunceford v. Craft , actually went to trial. Peeples, a Republican from outside Harris County, decided that case in favor of the Democratic defendant. He also granted summary judgment for the Democratic defendants in 15 other cases. Another four plaintiffs – including Alexandra del Moral Mealer, the 2022 Republican candidate for Harris County Judge – voluntarily dropped their claims.

Pierce's challenge stood out because it was the closest contest, by a wide margin, among the 21 suits filed. The final count in the 2022 race for the 18 th District Court showed Jones defeating Pierce by 534,460 to 534,011, a margin of 449 votes. Peeples found that 1,430 votes cast in the race were illegal, and it was impossible to determine which candidate received those votes.

Further, Peeples found that a net margin of 321 votes were cast for Jones in the extended hour of voting at the end of Election Day. The court held that extension "resulted from an official mistake by the Harris County Elections Administration Office."

Harris County Republican Party chair Cindy Siegel issued a statement calling on the Texas Secretary of State's Office to schedule a new election as soon as possible.

"This decision is monumental and makes it clear to anyone running elections in the state of Texas that if they don't follow the letter of the law, there will be consequences," Siegel said. "While Tami Pierce came out on top in this case, the real winner is the Harris County voter, who can now have some faith restored in our electoral process."

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Texas judge orders new election after GOP lawsuit challenged 2022 election result

Judge says 1,430 illegal votes were cast in the race making it impossible to determine the true outcome of the race, by juan a. lozano | the associated press • published may 16, 2024 • updated on may 16, 2024 at 2:04 pm.

A Texas judge has ruled in favor of a Republican candidate challenging the results in a 2022 judicial race and ordered that a new election be held in the nation’s third-most populous county, a Democratic stronghold that’s been beset by GOP efforts to dictate how ballots are cast.

A losing GOP candidate in a November 2022 judicial race had filed a lawsuit calling for a new election in her contest in Harris County, where Houston is located. Republican Tami Pierce lost her race to be a criminal court judge to the Democratic incumbent, DaSean Jones, by 449 votes.

Pierce blamed her defeat on allegations that illegal votes were cast by people who did not live in the county and that some ballots lacked needed signatures and other information. In court documents, Jones’ attorney, Oliver Brown, argued that Pierce could not prove there were sufficient illegal or mistaken votes cast in the judicial race that would “materially affect this election.”

But in a 32-page ruling issued Wednesday, visiting Judge David Peeples ruled in favor of Pierce, saying 1,430 illegal votes were cast in the race.

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Peeple wrote that among the illegal votes, 983 were cast by people living outside Harris County and 445 were cast by voters who did not show photo identification or did not show a substitute ID document.

“The true outcome in the contest for Judge of the 180th District Court cannot be determined, and a new election is therefore ordered,” Peeples wrote.

Peeples’ ruling, first reported by the Houston Chronicle, came after a two-day trial in April.

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A date for the new election was not immediately set as Peeples wrote that he first needed to discuss this with attorneys in the case.

Brown did not immediately reply to an email seeking comment. He told other news outlets he planned to appeal the ruling.

Paul Simpson, an attorney for Pierce, praised Peeple’s ruling and said “voluminous, detailed evidence” revealed many problems with the 2022 election.

“We hope Judge Jones will not further delay justice by appealing but, instead, face Harris County voters in a new election when ordered by the court,” Simpson said in a statement.

Harris County GOP Chairman Cindy Siegel said voters “can now have some faith restored in our electoral process.”

But Mike Doyle, chair of the Harris County Democratic Party, was critical of the GOP's efforts to overturn the election results, saying in a statement that “because they won’t stop fighting Harris County voting results when they lose, they will just need to lose again in a completely unnecessary and unjustified re-do."

Peeples’ ruling in Pierce’s lawsuit came six months after he threw out most of the 21 lawsuits that had been filed by GOP candidates challenging their losses in the November 2022 election. Pierce’s lawsuit had been the sole unresolved case.

In his ruling from last year related to a lawsuit in another judicial race, Peeples wrote he had “found many mistakes” and violations of the election code in Harris County. But not enough votes in the race between candidates Erin Lunceford and Tamika Craft were put in doubt to justify voiding that election, he wrote.

Harris County, which President Joe Biden won by double-digits in 2020, has become a recurring target of GOP lawmakers who have rushed to impose stricter voting measures and passed a law in 2023 that could allow the state to take over the county’s elections.

The lawsuits in Houston followed similar court challenges that have become more common around the country following baseless conspiracy theories spread by former President Donald Trump and his supporters alleging the 2020 presidential election was stolen.

Elections have been scrutinized for several years now in Harris County — which has nearly 5 million residents, most of whom are Latino or Black. Problems have included long lines, poll workers and ballot shortages, and ballots that were not counted on the day of the election.

Harris County, like much of the rest of Texas, previously voted Republican. But demographic changes in the county have been trending toward residents who are younger and minorities, groups who tend to vote Democratic, experts say. The state’s other large urban areas, like Dallas, El Paso, and San Antonio, also vote Democratic.

In recent years, new elections have been ordered in races in other parts of the country due to various problems.

In November, a judge ordered a new election for mayor of Bridgeport, Connecticut, after finding surveillance videos showed people stuffing absentee ballots into outdoor collection boxes. In December, a judge in Louisiana ordered a new election in a sheriff’s race after finding evidence that a handful of ballots were cast illegally.

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