{"id":1369,"date":"2006-06-03T19:29:22","date_gmt":"2006-06-04T03:29:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/peru\/2006\/06\/03\/blank-voters-and-humala-voters\/"},"modified":"2010-09-29T20:10:36","modified_gmt":"2010-09-30T04:10:36","slug":"blank-voters-and-humala-voters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/peru\/2006\/06\/03\/blank-voters-and-humala-voters\/","title":{"rendered":"Blank Voters and Humala Voters"},"content":{"rendered":"

Matthew Singer
\nJune 3, 2006<\/strong>
\nAs the election arrives, one question is how to interpret the large proportion of voters who have been reporting in polls that they intend to null their votes or vote blank instead of supporting one of the two candidates. For example, 19% of respondents in the Universidad Catolica poll conducted immediately prior to the debate and published last week said they would not vote for either candidate, three times the number of voters who were undecided (6%) and almost three times larger than the margin between the two candidates in the entire electorate (7%). The challenge for pollsters in interpreting these numbers in to determine (or guess) which of these blank votes will actually nullify their vote instead of supporting one of those candidates and which of these are “hidden votes” who simply prefer to not declare their support for one of the candidates.
\nIn recent fieldwork, I was able to obtain a portion of the results of the before mentioned survey as part of an ongoing project on economic voting. I do not have measures of voters’ policy preferences at this time, only measures of voters’ demographic characteristics and employment status. However, this
\ndata also allow us to perform a simple analysis of the choice between voting for Humala or Garcia or in blank. I should emphasize, however, that these statistical results are very preliminary and should be read with some caution but they do seem to be robust to model specification.
\nFirst, the model of support for Humala does not yield many surprising results that go against popular wisdom or commentary. All else equal, Humala supporters tend to be pessimistic with respect to their personal economic situation in the upcoming year, lower class, on the left of the ideological
\nscale, male, and (surprisingly to me at least) better educated than Garcia supporters. Evaluations of the national economy and employment status (whether or not the voter is unemployed or employed in the informal sector) do not have an independent effect on voter choices.
\nInterestingly, however, many of the factors that predict support for Humala also predict that voters will vote in blank. Specifically, the model predicts that voters who have negative evaluations of the nation economy or of their own economic prospects, who are leftist in ideological orientation, and who are
\nbetter educated are more likely to vote in blank than to support either candidate. More specifically, voters on the middle-left of the ideological spectrum are more likely to nullify their vote than to support either candidate. In addition, those with the most negative economic evaluations are substantially more likely to cast a blank vote. Finally, the most educated voters also tended to nullify their vote.
\nThese three results suggest that a large number of voters who otherwise might have been part of Humala’s block, according to this preliminary analysis, have declared their intention to instead nullify their vote. The question is whether these results reflect 1) the failure of Humala to animate a substantial proportion of votes that were available to him, resulting perhaps even in blank votes costing him the presidency or 2) the existence of a large hidden vote for his candidacy who are identifying themselves as blank voters. The first possibility is especially interesting as Humala’s campaign between rounds has been to focus on mobilizing his base instead of reaching out to swing voters in the middle of the spectrum but his campaign appears (if the polling data is accurate) to still be losing ideological moderates that he has not targeted and also the economically pessimistic voters that his campaign claims to represent. This question of interpretation cannot be answered by statistics, however, but
\nwill be resolved over the next few days as votes are counted.<\/p>\n


\nAlan pide no votar en blanco o viciado
\nPor Enrique Patriau
\nLa Republica<\/a>
\n3 de junio del 2006, p. 3.<\/strong>
\nAD PORTAS DEL D\u00cdA D \u2022 Candidato presidencial aprista invoc\u00f3 a la serenidad del electorado \u2022 Recibi\u00f3 en su oficina a representante del PSOE espa\u00f1ol y a la Misi\u00f3n de Observadores de la OEA \u2022 Inici\u00f3 etapa de espera almorzando en restaurante de Pueblo Libre con su familia.
\nGarc\u00eda recibi\u00f3 a Lloyd Axworthy, jefe de la Misi\u00f3n de Observaci\u00f3n OEA.
\nA escasas horas de la decisiva segunda vuelta electoral, el candidato presidencial del Apra, Alan Garc\u00eda P\u00e9rez, pidi\u00f3 a la ciudadan\u00eda a no votar en blanco ni viciado.
\n\u00bfPor qu\u00e9 raz\u00f3n? De acuerdo con el ex presidente, ello solamente favorecer\u00eda a una \u201copci\u00f3n no democr\u00e1tica\u201d.
\n\u201cEl voto en blanco o viciado es un derecho constitucional, es cierto. Pero en este momento, tenemos que elegir (…) Finalmente, voten por quien sea, pero voten\u201d, dijo.
\nEl de ayer fue el \u00faltimo d\u00eda previo a las elecciones en que Garc\u00eda pudo dirigirse a los peruanos. Y lo aprovech\u00f3 bastante bien.
\nPor la ma\u00f1ana, ofreci\u00f3 entrevistas a CPN Radio y RRP Noticias. En ambos hizo un resumen de sus principales propuestas de gobierno, las que se encarg\u00f3 de pregonar durante toda la campa\u00f1a.
\n\u201cEstas son mis \u00faltimas palabras antes de esperar el resultado que Dios todopoderoso y la voluntad del pueblo aguardan para el domingo\u201d, dijo Garc\u00eda en RPP.
\nAhora solamente le resta esperar si el triunfo le sonr\u00ede ma\u00f1ana o, como ocurri\u00f3 en el 2001, resulta nuevamente vencido.
\nSerenidad y confianza
\nGarc\u00eda envi\u00f3 un mensaje de confianza a quienes lo apoyar\u00e1n ma\u00f1ana con su voto, pero tambi\u00e9n invoc\u00f3 a la serenidad de todos los peruanos. Reconoci\u00f3, adem\u00e1s, que la campa\u00f1a se fue calentando paulatinamente, por eso solicit\u00f3 tranquilidad en esta hora decisiva para nuestro futuro.
\nEl candidato consider\u00f3 \u201cnatural\u201d que a pocas horas de las elecciones se \u201csaquen los cuchillos\u201d, y felicit\u00f3 a los dirigentes del Apra que, seg\u00fan su juicio, actuaron con \u201ccordura y prudencia”.
\nSe refugia en los suyos
\n1] Alan Garc\u00eda recibi\u00f3 en su oficina de campa\u00f1a, en el distrito de San Isidro, a la re-presentante del Partido Socialista Obrero Espa\u00f1ol (PSOE), Trinidad Jim\u00e9nez. Cabe se\u00f1a-
\nlar que ella fue una de las invitadas al mitin de cierre de campa\u00f1a del Apra, celebrado el jueves en la noche.
\n2] Para despejar las tensiones propias de la campa\u00f1a electoral, Garc\u00eda almorz\u00f3 ayer con toda su familia en un restaurante de Pueblo Libre.
\n3] La oficina de prensa del Apra todav\u00eda no ha informado cu\u00e1l ser\u00e1 el rol de actividades de Garc\u00eda para ma\u00f1ana. Sin embargo, lo m\u00e1s probable es que desayune con su familia en San Isidro (una de las costumbres electorales peruanas) y acuda a votar hacia el mediod\u00eda en el colegio Scipi\u00f3n Llona, ubicado en el distrito de Miraflores.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Matthew Singer June 3, 2006 As the election arrives, one question is how to interpret the large proportion of voters who have been reporting in polls that they intend to null their votes or vote blank instead of supporting one of the two candidates. For example, 19% of respondents in the Universidad Catolica poll conducted […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":331,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7961,79452],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1369","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-analysis-opinion","category-humala-ollanta"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/peru\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1369","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/peru\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/peru\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/peru\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/331"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/peru\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1369"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/peru\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1369\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1833,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/peru\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1369\/revisions\/1833"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/peru\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1369"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/peru\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1369"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/peru\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1369"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}