Seminar series Perceptions and electoral integrity: Evidence from Hungary Add to calendar 2025-04-24 17:00 2025-04-24 18:30 Europe/Rome Perceptions and electoral integrity: Evidence from Hungary Emeroteca Badia Fiesolana YYYY-MM-DD Print Share: Share on Facebook Share on BlueSky Share on X Share on LinkedIn Send by email Scheduled dates Apr 24 2025 17:00 - 18:30 CEST Emeroteca, Badia Fiesolana Organised by Department of Political and Social Sciences In the context of the Comparative Politics Seminar Series, this session features a presentation by Gábor Simonovits (Central European University). This event analyses the study of perceptions and electoral integrity in Hungary using surveys and experimental data on over 4,000 election observers that served during the 2022 general elections. It is first demonstrated that reports of irregularities were more common in areas prone to fraud, but were also shaped by the prior suspicion of observers suggesting that reports were partly driven by motivated reasoning. To rule out alternative explanations such as the selection of more suspicious observers to ex-ante riskier areas, or more vigilance exerted by them, and 'overinterpretation' of evidence driven by stereotypes, an experiment was conducted with the poll workers themselves in which they evaluated hypothetical scenarios that were perfectly legal, ambiguous or unequivocally fraudulent. Beliefs about fraud had a similar impact on perception as the observation of actual violations, casting doubt on the reliability of poll-based measures of voter fraud.