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Introduction
Understanding the integrity of the electoral process is a vital precursor for understanding any other aspect of electoral politics. Recognition of this point has led to the development of electoral integrity as a lively 'new agenda' in political science (Norris, 2013a). Much research in this area is often focussed upon democratizing countries, election observation missions, and the manipulation of elections in authoritarian regimes. In advanced democracies, the focus has remained largely on voting behaviour and party campaigns. This presupposes that the system for running elections permits free competition and choice, and is not biased or flawed for electors. This cannot be taken for granted; a range of recent difficulties in electoral processes in advanced democracies have highlighted the need for an examination of electoral integrity in such contexts (Wise, 2001; Alvarez and Hall, 2006; James, 2012; Clark, 2015). In particular, it is important to establish variance in the integrity of the electoral process, and to understand what factors may drive or impede the delivery of high-quality elections in such democracies.
This paper's major contribution is to present a multivariate analysis of various aspects which might impact on election quality in advanced democracies. It approaches this through an index of election administration derived from election administrators' performance standards in the 2010 British general election. The index is brought together with a range of contextual data, including electoral, geographical, and socio-economic variables, to provide an exploratory analysis of which factors may be more or less important in driving election quality in advanced democracies. Britain is typical of several advanced democracies, notably the United States but also smaller democracies like Ireland, in that local electoral officials have the main responsibility for delivering elections. Even where central government oversees elections, there is often still a sizeable role for local government in delivering those elections. Consequently, considerable variation in standards of electoral administration can exist. Britain is therefore an excellent case study for building both theory and knowledge about the relationship between electoral integrity and its determinants. Such a multivariate analysis in an advanced democracy during a national parliamentary general election is extremely rare. The findings are important because evidence from such a case can be utilized comparatively to...