This article deals with ballot order effect in preferential voting in general elections in Slovakia. Previous research in this field has primarily focused on countries whose elections are based either on single-member districts or on lists with fewer candidates. This article aims to analyze a case of a different nature. Slovakia uses a proportional representation list system with a single nationwide constituency where all 150 members of parliament are elected. Hence, most of the political parties create lists with a high number of candidates, which according to theory should enhance the influence of ballot ranking. Using data from Slovak general elections between 2006 and 2012 with a sample of 7,587 candidates, this study provides strong evidence of the impact of ballot order on the results of preferential voting. The analysis in this article shows the existence of both the primacy and recency effects, that is, a positive bias of voters towards candidates listed at both top and bottom positions on a list. What is more, the multilevel models used in this article demonstrate that support for top-ranked candidates significantly increases as the size of the list increases. For the bottom-listed candidates, this trend is rather the opposite. These findings represent a valuable contribution to the debate in this area as they provide insight into the role of ballot order in electoral systems that use lists composed of numerous candidates.

中文翻译：

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选票排名的作用

本文讨论斯洛伐克大选中优先投票的投票顺序效应。该领域以前的研究主要集中在那些选举基于单一成员地区或候选人名单较少的国家。本文旨在分析一个不同性质的案例。斯洛伐克采用比例代表名单制有一个全国性的选区，其中议会全体150名成员选出。因此，大多数政党创建的候选人名单很多，根据理论，这应该会增加投票等级的影响。该研究使用2006年至2012年斯洛伐克大选的数据以及7,587名候选人的样本，为选票对优先投票结果的影响提供了有力证据。本文中的分析显示了优​​先权和新近度效应的存在，即选民对名单上最高和最低位置上列出的候选人的积极偏见。此外，本文中使用的多级模型表明，随着列表数量的增加，对排名靠前的候选人的支持也会大大增加。对于排名第二的候选人，这种趋势则相反。这些发现为这一领域的辩论做出了宝贵贡献，因为它们可以洞悉投票制度在使用由众多候选人组成的名单的选举系统中的作用。本文中使用的多层次模型表明，随着列表数量的增加，对排名靠前的候选人的支持也会大大增加。对于排名第二的候选人，这种趋势则相反。这些发现为这一领域的辩论做出了宝贵贡献，因为它们可以洞悉投票制度在使用由众多候选人组成的名单的选举系统中的作用。本文中使用的多层次模型表明，随着列表数量的增加，对排名靠前的候选人的支持也会大大增加。对于排名第二的候选人，这种趋势则相反。这些发现为这一领域的辩论做出了宝贵贡献，因为它们提供了对投票制度在使用众多候选人组成的名单的选举系统中的作用的深刻见解。