Unfair election

In the United Kingdom, some form of representation in government had been guaranteed since Magna Carta, but only for a tiny elite, and potentially vetoed by the Monarch.

[7] After the First World War, the new Weimar Republic's constitution of 1919 guaranteed true universal suffrage, giving women the right to vote for the first time.

An early case of electoral fraud was in an election to the county of Northamptonshire in England in 1768, when three earls spent more than £100,000 each to buy votes from voters to win their seats.

[9] Voter intimidation was widespread in the March 1933 German federal election, immediately before the Nazi party abolished Parliament's powers.

Hitler had become Chancellor at the start of 1933 in a coalition agreement, and with control over the police, opposition party members and campaigners were beaten up and imprisoned throughout the voting process.

The large exception was the United States, because a majority of judges on the US Supreme Court who were appointed by the Republican Party continued to strike down campaign finance limits as unconstitutional from 1976.

Regulation may also extend to who owns news and television organisations, so that the power to grant access information channels is not unduly limited.