Smart enough to make a difference? An empirical test of the efficacy of strategic voting in Russia’s authoritarian elections

ABSTRACT

This article uses a unique dataset from the September 2019 municipal elections in St. Petersburg in order to examine empirically the efficacy of strategic voting under authoritarianism, as manifest in the effects of the “smart vote campaign” of Alexei Navalny in Russia. The analysis allows for the conclusion that the campaign, while technically similar to the vote advice applications that are now widespread in many democracies, was efficient enough to make a significant difference in the overtly authoritarian context. We demonstrate empirically that Navalny’s call for strategic voting did indeed affect the behavior of the electorate, particularly by improving strategic coordination among opposition-minded voters; that the electoral results of the candidates backed by the “smart vote” campaign tended to be better than the electoral results of other non–United Russia candidates; and that as a result of the “smart vote” campaign, the dominant party’s electoral results deteriorated quite visibly.

KEYWORDS:

• Russia
• electoral authoritarianism
• Navalny
• strategic voting
• vote advice applications

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed here.

Notes

1. The data on whether a particular candidate was included on the “smart vote” list in the 2019 municipal elections in St. Petersburg were derived from the webpage of the “smart vote” campaign (http://2019.vote/; accessed 9 September 2019). As of March 2020, the data are no longer available. All electoral data used in this study are obtained from the official webpage of the St. Petersburg Election Commission (http://www.st-petersburg.izbirkom.ru/; accessed 9 February 2020).

2. Most such candidates ran in two districts only (allowing for direct comparison between “smart vote” support and lack of same), but some contested elections in multiple districts. In the latter case, the candidate’s “smart vote” electoral result (or mean if multiple districts were involved) was compared with his or her absolute or mean share of the vote in districts where such support was not provided. For instance, Grigorii Menshikov was nominated by his party, the KPRF, in five electoral districts, but he enjoyed “smart vote” support in just one of them. In this case, we compared his result gained in a district where he was supported by the “smart vote” campaign with his average share of the vote in the remaining four districts. Such an approach was implemented in all cases when we compared the full samples of candidates. When comparing the reduced samples of candidates as defined in the text, we took into account only results obtained under specific party labels or without stated party affiliation across all districts. For instance, Sergei Bondin was nominated by A Just Russia in two districts. He was supported by the “smart vote” campaign in just one of them. In addition, he ran in one district as an independent without “smart vote” support. In this case, we took into account Bondin’s results only in those districts where he ran as a candidate of A Just Russia.

3. For those candidates who ran in more than two districts, we adjusted their electoral outcomes using the algorithm described in Note 2.

4. Due to the small number of nominees, the following parties were excluded from the analysis: Communists of Russia, Motherland, the Labor Party of Russia, the Party of Social Protection, Civic Platform, and the Cossack Party (see Table 1).

5. In theory, previous electoral performance could have been used by Navalny as a basis for placing candidates on the “smart vote” list, which would have shed a different light on voters’ behavior. However, only 17 candidates of the 94 individuals supported by the “smart vote” campaign in some districts but not in others participated in the previous cycle of St. Petersburg local elections. These 17 candidates can be divided into three groups. Candidates from the first group, comprising eight individuals, did not run in the same electoral districts as previously, which obviously made it difficult to assess their electoral potential. The same applies to the candidates from the second group, five in sum, who remained in the same districts as previously but were placed onto the 2019 “smart vote” list in different districts. Only the candidates from the third group, consisting of five individuals, one of whom could be also ascribed to the second group, were supported by the “smart vote” campaign exactly in the same districts where they ran in the previous cycle. Four of them performed better in 2019 than in the previous elections.