Application of the Hypergeometric Model in Electoral Disputes Settlement

Abstract

Judges or members of Election Management Bodies (EMBs) of many less developed democracies are often faced with reviewing electoral complaints and coming out with a decision that is acceptable to all parties involved. Some judges have ruled for complete cancellation of all votes in the affected polling stations. Where the electoral irregularities are widespread, it is very difficult to declare a winner without incurring the additional cost of a re-run. In this article, we use the hypergeometric model to provide an alternative method to direct cancellation or proportional deduction approach used by many EMBs in the settlement of electoral disputes. To be specific, we provide a bound on the margin of victory when either a re-run or fresh election is not necessary to determine the winner of the polls, i.e., the non-overturn condition. We use this method to investigate whether or not the decision by the Electoral Commission of Ghana to declare the NDC candidate the winner of the presidential run-off of 2008 is statistically correct given the data available to the Commission on the day to declare the winner. Using this approach in the review of electoral complaints could help developing nations to save some money for development that would otherwise have been spent on election re-runs