Paper Title
Brokerage in Election: Measure Voters and Its Implication (A Case from Indonesia)
Abstract
- As a form of brokerage activity, vote brokerage in election require clear and measurable voters. Candidates will not hire vote broker when commodity (voter) can not be measured. Similarly, vote broker will not get job if there is no clear commodity that can be offered to candidate. That logic being the beginning of this study. In fact, at least in research field, indicated rising of debate about whether voters in brokeragewere measured actually. Some brokers registered voters, and others did not, it rised question about the logic.destabilizing the logic. Was vote brokerage really measurable? Did they have different method of measuring? What was the implication on brokerage?. To answer those questions, I made observations and interviews in central Java Province during their local election (2015-2017). Results, vote brokerage always measurable. Registering voters in listindicated that measurement was by name, which led to distribute material(money, goods, etc) to names in the list.Others, no register, but measurement was by estimation, targeting on how large social influence of broker. The use of different method is influenced by two characteristics of voters, ie transactional and non-transactional, then influenced strategy of brokerage.
Keywords - Vote Broker, Measurement, Estimation, Social Influence