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Meet Ikhsan Darmawan, a University Fellowship recipient. Ikhsan is a Political Science Ph.D. student studying Transnational and Comparative Politics.

Please give a short overview of your research:

Despite electronic voting’s (or e-voting’s) strengths (e.g., its accuracy), in total there are only 32 countries that have adopted this method of voting in their national elections. My research seeks to answer the question: “Why are some countries driven to adopt e-voting in their national elections while other countries are not driven to do so in theirs?” My dissertation focuses on global e-voting adoption trends (country-level of analysis), and more specifically how these trends manifest in the Philippines and Indonesia (individual-level of analysis). I will be using various methods (survival analysis, quasi-experiment, survey experiment, and expert survey). For the country level of analysis, I include 156 countries by employing the secondary datasets. For the individual level of analysis, I conduct surveys that involve the Indonesian college students and the Philippines’ election experts. I hope that my research could provide a better estimation and explanation on the factors that drive countries to adopt e-voting.

What made you choose to pursue your graduate degree here at Kent State?

My dissertation’s advisor, Dr. Ryan Claassen, is one of the reasons why I chose Kent State as my place to hone my research and writing skills and to earn a doctoral degree. We have similar research interests in election studies, election administration, and e-voting. I also want to master quantitative methods in political science under his supervision.

What do you enjoy most about attending Kent State for graduate school?

I enjoy the process of learning, not only to be an expert in a specific topic but also to be a good independent scholar. Kent State helps me to prepare to become a future expert with their facilities and the support from the faculty members in my department.

What are your future goals?

After I complete my dissertation, my main future goal is to land an academic tenure-track position that can enable and support me to both teach and do research. My second future goal is to be a good researcher/scholar whose publications are acknowledged both by the academic community and the society in general. I really want my academic work to be beneficial not only academically but also practically for the public and the policy-makers.