The literature on election violence lacks a consistent set of core predictors for why certain elections are violent and others are not. Between 2010 and 2022 ninety-seven scholars published sixty-five peer-reviewed journal articles on this topic using quantitative research designs involving over 440 predictor variables. As a distinct research area, therefore, the study of election violence has reached a size and maturity where it is useful to take stock. This manuscript makes a modest but clear contribution to the election violence literature by taking a comprehensive summary of what predictor variables have been tested using quantitative analysis and what these tests find.
A meta-analysis of 581 models in sixty-five journal articles indicates there is a limited but clear set of structural, electoral, and individual factors that are significantly related to election violence. Specifically, thirteen variables robustly affect the probability of election violence including population size, violent domestic conflict, election competitiveness, and election fraud. 

Dr. Rich Frank is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Politics and International Relations (SPIR) at the Australian National University. Rich’s research focuses on how international and domestic politics can affect both subnational political violence and human rights violations. For example, two current projects centre on (1) the use of violence surrounding elections and (2) how governmental policies shape human trafficking flows. Within SPIR he serves as the Research Community Coordinator and organises the SPIR weekly seminar series. Rich currently serves as an editor of the Australian Journal of Political Science, on the editorial board of the International Studies Quarterly, and on the advisory board of the Electoral Integrity Project.