Electoral fraud
In national elections, successful electoral fraud on a sufficient scale can have the effect of a coup d'état,[citation needed] protest[5] or corruption of democracy.
Penalties vary widely by state and can include fines, imprisonment, loss of voting rights, and disqualification from holding public office.
[9][10] Many countries prevent this with rules stipulating that a voter must have lived in an electoral district for a minimum period (for example, six months) in order to be eligible to vote there.
However, such laws can also be used for demographic manipulation as they tend to disenfranchise those with no fixed address, such as the homeless, travelers, Roma, students (studying full-time away from home), and some casual workers.
For instance, Malaysia gave citizenship to immigrants from the neighboring Philippines and Indonesia, together with suffrage, in order for a political party to "dominate" the state of Sabah; this controversial process was known as Project IC.
In some cases, states had passed provisions that raised general barriers to voter registration, such as poll taxes, literacy and comprehension tests, and record-keeping requirements, which in practice were applied against minority populations to discriminatory effect.
For example, requiring people to vote within their electorate may disenfranchise serving military personnel, prison inmates, students, hospital patients or anyone else who cannot return to their homes.
[citation needed] The Wartime Elections Act, conversely, disenfranchised particular ethnic groups assumed to be disproportionately in favour of the opposition Liberal Party.
[20] One notable example of outright violence was the 1984 Rajneeshee bioterror attack, where followers of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh deliberately contaminated salad bars in The Dalles, Oregon, in an attempt to weaken political opposition during county elections.
[3] For example, in the Chilean presidential election of 1970, the U.S. government's Central Intelligence Agency used "black propaganda"—materials purporting to be from various political parties—to sow discord between members of a coalition between socialists and communists.
It also paid off-duty police officers to patrol polling sites in Newark and Trenton, and posted signs saying that falsifying a ballot is a crime.
[30] Baselessly, the call warned potential voters if they submitted their votes by mail that authorities could use their personal information against them, including threats of police arrest for outstanding warrants and forced debt collection by creditors.
[31] On October 24, 2022, Wohl and Burkman pleaded guilty in Cuyahoga County, Ohio Common Pleas Court to one count each of felony telecommunications fraud.
[32] Commenting on the tactic of using disinformation to suppress voter turnout, Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Michael C. O’Malley said the two men had "infringed upon the right to vote", and that "by pleading guilty, they were held accountable for their un-American actions.”[33] False claims of electoral fraud can be used as a basis for attempting to overturn an election.
During and after the 2020 presidential election, incumbent President Donald Trump made numerous baseless allegations of electoral fraud by supporters of Democratic candidate Joe Biden.
For example, in the 2000 U.S. presidential election, Florida's butterfly ballot paper was criticized as poorly designed, leading some voters to vote for the wrong candidate.
For example, in Scotland and other parts of the United Kingdom, up to three different voting systems and types of ballots may be used, based on the jurisdictional level of the election.
[citation needed] During the Bourbon Restoration in late 19th century Spain, the organized “loss” of voting slips (pucherazo) was used to maintain the agreed alternation between the Liberals and the Conservatives.
An unusually large share of invalidated ballots may be attributed to loyal supporters of candidates that lost in primaries or previous rounds, did not run or did not qualify to do so, or some manner of protest movement or organized boycott.
[65] Research at Argonne National Laboratories revealed that a single individual with physical access to a machine, such as a Diebold Accuvote TS, can install inexpensive, readily available electronic components to manipulate its functions.
While such practices tend to draw international condemnation, voters typically have little if any recourse, as there would seldom be any ways to remove the fraudulent winner from power, short of a revolution.
In Georgia, Mikheil Saakashvili received 96.2% of votes in the election following the Rose Revolution while his ally Nino Burjanadze was an interim head of state.
[105][106] Some problems have inherently limited scope, such as family pressure, while others can affect several percent of the vote, such as dishonest collectors[93] and overly strict signature verification.
"[108][needs update] Illegal non-citizen voting is considered extremely rare in the United States by most experts due to the severe penalties associated with the practice including deportation, incarceration or fines in addition to jeopardizing their attempt to naturalize.
The Justice Department has published Federal Prosecution of Election Offenses in eight editions from 1976 to 2017, under Presidents Ford, Carter, Reagan, Clinton, Bush and Trump.
[125] Others argue that the secret ballot enables election fraud (because it makes it harder to verify that votes have been counted correctly)[126][127] and that it discourages voter participation.
[128][failed verification] Although the secret ballot was sometimes practiced in ancient Greece and was a part of the Constitution of the Year III of 1795, it only became common in the nineteenth century.
[citation needed] In the United States, the popularity of the Australian ballot grew as reformers in the late 19th century sought to reduce the problems of election fraud.
[citation needed] Most methods of preventing electoral fraud involve making the election process completely transparent to all voters, from nomination of candidates through casting of the votes and tabulation.
[citation needed] Critics note that observers cannot spot certain types of election fraud like targeted voter suppression or manipulated software of voting machines.
