Election Ink and Turnout in a Partial Democracy

[...]few credible measures of turnout exist in emerging democracies. Studies of turnout and other types of voting behavior in emerging democracies might benefit from these insights, which highlight the value of considering institutional features of elections in addition to individual-level factors like age, education and partisanship emphasized in most extant work (Bratton, 1999, 2008; Bratton, Mattes, and Gyimah-Boadi, 2005; Isaksson, 2014; Kuenzi and Lambright, 2011, 2007). Inking as a Standard Electoral Practice Use of election ink dates to the early 1980s, when election officials began marking voters with ink detectable only with ultraviolet light. Ink offers a low-technology, inexpensive solution easily delivered with election materials and not requiring extensive training or electricity to implement.2 Polling station staff need only mark a finger (or other part of the hand) with indelible ink after voting.